Shadows of a Forgotten World

Before electricity, stairwells were lit up by candles, gas lamps, and other types of lighting. Lanterns were hung from hooks or poles high in the central area of the stairwell, or sometimes the stairwell's newel posts, due to their prime location, functioned also as lamp posts. Early newel posts burned oil or paraffin, but eventually were replaced by gas lighting. And ultimately, with the onset of electricity, electric wires replaced the gas supply tubes to bring electric light to the spaces. Newel posts lamps came in huge array of styles, and often there was a glass shade around the flame. The newel post lamps that I've found in Lviv, however, are quite different than the examples I've been able to find online. And unfortunately, I haven't had any luck finding information about Lviv's interior lamp posts, so I'm not exactly sure of the details of how they worked. I believe that the examples that I found  date to the late 19th-early 20th centuries and  b...

An NPR article about London's last gas lamps . Rich Preston/NPR "In the United Kingdom, British Gas employs 30,000 workers. Five of them could be said to carry a torch that has been burning for two centuries. They are the lamplighters, tending to gas lamps that still line the streets in some of London's oldest neighborhoods and parks. "London still has about 1,500 gas lamps. The group English Heritage decided to preserve them after almost all the others were replaced by electric lamps. These look almost exactly the same as when they were first installed 200 years ago. They're just a little taller to accommodate modern traffic. "The gas lamps that still stand in London are now protected by law. If one is knocked down, it is replaced with an exact replica. They cast a calming, mellow light, maintained by these few remaining lamplighters — literal keepers of the flame."