商品簡介
Gas street lighting was first demonstrated in London in 1807, on Pall Mall. More than two centuries on, around 1,300 of those original lamps are still burning, tended by a small team of lamplighters who wind the mechanisms, polish the glass, and replace the mantles on a fortnightly rotation.
London by Gaslight explores them on foot, across six walks through central London: Pall Mall and St James's, Westminster, Covent Garden, the ancient Inns of Court, Hyde Park and Kensington, and the sweep from Green Park down to Buckingham Palace.
The guide is written by the London Gasketeers, the campaign group founded by antiquarian bookseller Tim Bryars and art and antiques dealer Luke Honey to protect the capital's remaining historic gas lamps from conversion to LED. Since its founding, the campaign has successfully secured Grade II listing for lamps in Covent Garden, St James's, and Westminster, saving them from removal. The Gasketeers work closely with the British Gas lamplighters who maintain the lamps, and have drawn support from the press, the public, and figures including actor and author Simon Callow.
Part walking tour, part history, part technical primer, the guide covers the four lamp styles still in use across the city, the craft and traditions of the lamplighters, and the Gasketeers' own story. The oldest lamps on Birdcage Walk carry the crest of King George IV. The cloisters of Westminster Abbey are lit by gas. On Carting Lane, beside the Savoy, one lamp has burned around the clock for over a century, fuelled by sewer gas drawn up by the heat of its own flame.
