11 November 2022
'Twenty Clockmakers joined a two-hour after-dark walking tour at Westminster on the 15th November, led by three members of the British Gas team who maintain more than a thousand gas lamps located across London, many of which are still controlled by fortnightly wound Horstmann timeswitches. Our key guide, Joe Fuller, explained the history of gas lighting in London, from 1807 onwards, and the emergence of the Gas Light and Coke Company, ancestor of the modern British Gas. We were introduced to the range of different lamp styles (including the Rochester, Windsor, Regent and Westminster) produced by William Sugg & Company, a firm which exists to this day, still supporting London lamps. We learned about the gas mantels and their replacement cycles, and also about what appears to be the constant accidents that occur, with lorries in particular knocking street lamps and putting them out of action. Our walk took in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, Horseguards, the Mall, Carlton Terrace (where the lamps carry the insignia of George IV and are therefore pre-1830). Thence to Trafalgar Square and the Strand, off which we saw the last of London’s sewer lamps, next to the Strand, designed to burn off noxious methane smells. Finally we gathered by St Pauls’ Covent Garden to learn about the gas-lighting of the ‘actors’ church’. Our guide went to a lot of trouble along our route to point out a huge range of fascinating details about statues, churches, and other small details of London’s streetscape that hide in plain sight–a masterful performance. The evening rounded off with a convivial meal in an upper room of the Lamb & Flag, outside the windows of which burn atmospheric Windsor gas lamps. It was in all an illuminating and enjoyable evening'.
The Master Dr James Nye
