Street Gas light maintenance opposite The Houses of Parliament today

BGUK_3216420 - The first well-recorded public street lighting with gas was demonstrated in Pall Mall, London, on January 28, 1807. Engineer Frederick Winsor illuminated a line of gas streetlights to celebrate King George III’s birthday. These streetlights used gas pipes crafted from old musket guns and a single spark ignited the entire street. London currently has only five lamplighters entrusted with maintaining the 1.300 gas lamps stretching from Richmond Bridge in the West to Bromley-by-Bow in the East. The long avenue of Kensington Palace Gardens is exclusively illuminated by gas lamps. Each lamp is visited on a fortnightly rotation. Their mechanisms have to be wound and checked, the glass polished and the ‘mantles’ replaced. The Houses of Parliament look after their lamps. Hyde Park also has its own lamplighters. Each gas lamp bears the crest of the monarch in the year it was erected. The oldest gas lamps, displaying George IV’s insignia, can be found on Birdcage Walk.