Alley by gaslight

London is bristling with historical artefacts and museum pieces, though few of them are in active use on a daily basis. But across the capital, 1,500 gas street lights are still lighting streets and alleyways every night.

There are clusters of gas street lighting if you know where to look: the streets around Covent Garden are one, Mayfair is another. In most cases they are found where buildings of Georgian or Victorian vintage have been preserved, and the street scene holds on to ancient bollards, stone kerbs and in some cases even cobbles or flags thanks to a preservation order. Some are up to 200 years old, and where one occasionally has to be replaced, a replica is installed that's hard to tell from the original.

This gallery contains pictures of some of the gas lights in and around Smith Square, a few streets away from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, seen in the daytime and at night.

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