Lammas Avenue I remember was Gas lit. I was fascinated as a kid to watch the mantle light up and begin to glow! Freezing cold most winter evenings but the gas lights were of a comfort!

My grandfather was a lamplighter in Streatham common retired 1962 think he only had a few to check on then 🤔

I was born in 1952 and lived in Franklin Crescent. I remember the gas lights in the street. I also remember the terrible smogs. I love watching this channel. I now live in South Yorkshire where the coal came from to make the gas.

@mitchamnotes

10 күн бұрын

Thanks for your kind comment! Did you make it to the end of the video?

@christophergreen1417

10 күн бұрын

I always make it to the end of all your videos. I do love them. In your video about the aerial photograph of the Smith Meter works I remember you saying about “garden sheds”. Could they have been air raid shelters. I remember them in gardens. They were of concrete design. Keep up your good work.

There was gas street light outside my house in Colliers Wood up to the 1950s I think.

Fascinating! I lived in De’Arn gardens and remember the gas lights . Sadly a neighbour took his life - poor man - by gassing himself . My Gran “ Granny Boxall” lived in Fountain Road . Her terraced house had no electricity until very late - possibly the mid to late 1950s . Downstairs had gas lights only but upstairs was only by candles . We bought gas mantles for the lights at Maidments shop on the corner of Fountain Road and Western Road . In the great freeze of 1947 when coal yards were frozen , Mitcham gas works started to sell boff coke in sacks . My earliest memory is of going with my Gran to buy a sack of coke . It was a huge help when we were very cold and conventional coal was not available. The great smog was terrible with visibility down to a metre . The image of the ship Mitcham was very interesting. Coal was moved from Benedict wharf to the Gas works in 8 wheeled Foden trucks which thundered and juddered as they passed the Star school . I had not realised the connection between coal manufacturing and the many paint and varnish manufacturers in Mitcham before . Thanks for enlightening me . Keep your videos coming !

@mitchamnotes

9 күн бұрын

Thank you for such a great comment! Was your gran related to the James Boxall who was licensee of the Windmill pub from 1915 to possibly 1933? See my blog post at mitchamhistorynotes.com/pubs/windmill/

@kenlavey7771

9 күн бұрын

Boxall is quite a common name in Surrey . My maternal grandfather was possibly related but he was more closely related to the Boxall family who lived in Fountain Road . I know he had brothers and they all volunteered for service in the Great War . All survived but one died after the war when he threw a woman out of the way of a lorry but was himself crushed . My maternal grandfather William “ Bill “ Boxall was at one time a plate layer on the railway before working at Mitcham gas works .

@mitchamnotes

9 күн бұрын

@@kenlavey7771 thanks for your reply!

Drat and blast, my laptop has just died and you can't write the same amount of text on a phone. I do want to write much larger piece about still being able to buy gas lights for houses till at least the 1980s, working in a pub where the entire ground floor could be gas lit. Knowing a bit about coal by-products from a time when I worked for the NCB. One question to ask, Sheffield being built with a ring of hills around it did at one point use gas lights to burn off methane from high points in the sewerage system. I think they were still there till twenty years ago or so. Any ideas?

@mitchamnotes

8 күн бұрын

When I did the research on the gas lamp at the Mitcham cricket green, see kzread.info/dash/bejne/fWans9ONe6a0l5M.html , Sheffield came up a lot! It would have been nice to see diagrams of the box at the base of that lamp, which would have helped in getting the date correct when its was listed by the Council. I'd also like to do a video on gas mantles - there was a factory that made them in Mitcham/Streatham whose business boomed in WW1 when German supplies were halted. Mitcham's varnish and dye firms predated the use of coal tar and were sited near the river Wandle for its watermills and the Surrey Iron Railway for getting imported supplies via the Thames and Wandsworth. All in all, a huge subject area! You can contact me by email if you wish, (when your laptop recovers,) the email address can be found in the channel's About. Cheers.