Gas Lit Houses

We looked at a cottage in the 1970's that only had gas lights. We didn't buy it as the building society wouldn't lend on a property that needed so much work.

Our first rented flat by the sea had gas streetlighting and I believe it has those gas lights even today. Some parts of London also still have gas lighting.

www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/dec/25/londons-last-gas-street-lamps

We had no central heating for ages in our family home, open fires, then gas fires, but I do remember a Tilley lamp with a gas mantle. Dad used to get cross if it got broken.
I think the Tilley lamp was some sort of heater, but not sure.

In the late 1960s, when the conversion to natural gas was taking place my aunt insisted on having the several gas mantles in her otherwise electrically lit house converted to naturalgas - and found them very useful during the electrical power cuts that accompanied the industrial disruption of the early 1970s.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Sorry, that posted itself. It was meant to say my mother didn’t like it.

1’ve never lived in a gaslit house, but in the 1950s a friend of mine did. I know she had a candle at night.

We also had a family friend who lived in a house that looked like a small castle in the wilds of Wales. It was lit by oil lamps and candles. We children thought it was very exciting, but my mother difn’t likr’

When I came home from school, I was around 7-8 years old, my dad had to nip home from work to light the gas light for me because I was too young to be let loose with matches.

My Grandma's house had gas lamps for a time but then they were replaced by electricity. I cannot remember when but do remember her lighting the lamps.

Yes, my grandparents lived in a gas lit house until they died, in the mid-1970s.
I have very fond memories of visiting my great-aunt in her house with no running water, gas or electricity. I loved feast days with the trestle tables set out so beautifully. I didn't mind the earth closet at all but my cousin hated it!
I remember the lamps (oil or paraffin, can't remember) with globes filled with water. She told me how, when doing 'outwork' she had to make sure she did the blackwork by day because the light wasn't good enough to do in the evening, but she could still embroider.

We had the remains of the gas light fittings on the walls of the house I lived in when I was a child.

One of the churches in our group still has gas lighting. With candles and an open fire, it's very atmospheric at Christmas.

I've still got my mum's ironing board, complete with asbestos.

Well, ironing boards had asbestos for a long while didn't they? (And it used to wear away)

Asbestos, is a natural mineral and has been around in the atmosphere since time began, and while all asbestos is carcinogenic, those who develop asbestos related cancer, have usually had prolonged contact with abestos, especially blue asbestos dust, either through handling it in building construction and drilling or hammering it, or spouses washing and ironing the clothes of men working with asbestos in this manner or people working near asbestos factories or other situations where there was a lot of dust in the atmosphere.

I do not think there has been a case of cancer caused by those sheets of asbestos on ironing boards. The amount of asbestos in them was relatively low.

Our integral garage has an asbestos board ceiling, I think a building regulation requirement when it was put in, in the 1960s. We just put two thick coats of ceiling paint on it when we moved in and have not touched it since.

Oh, we had a cast iron stand for our flat iron! I remember the clang when the ironer paused to turn the garment.

Oh I had forgotten the holders
I think ours were made of flannel or pieces of old blanket which were stitched together to be thick enough.
Youngsters have no idea have they?

I grew up in a house that had gas mantles and open fireplaces in the bedrooms. I don’t remember the gas mantles ever being used - we had electric lighting - but the fireplaces were used in the wintertime. My mother cooked on a Yorkshire range for years until the linings failed in on the oven, and then she graduate to a gas cooker but always complained it didn’t cook bread or Yorkshire puddings properly!

Yes I remember the irons. Later on we had a big piece of ASBESTOS we used to rest it on. And yet here we are, at a ripe old age !

annsixty they heated the flat irons in front of the fire with us. Can still remember the scorched smell of the cotton iron-holders.

I lived in a house just lit by gas until I was in my teens.
It was just what I knew so it didnt seem odd.
We had two open fires , one was a range with two ovens and trivets which swung over the fire for a kettle and saucepans.
It also had a boiler at the back for the hot water. Strangely I don't remember the gas lights in the bedrooms although there must have been.
It seems so very primitive now.
Just remembered that of course, we ironed using flat irons which were heated on a solitary gas ring.

My nan still lived in a gas lit house with outside privy until mid '60s. The council then housed her in a lovely modern flat, tore down the pair of grand Victorian semis and built a town bypass in their place.

Gonegirl Nothing tastes as nice as toast made on a toasting fork and then covered in butter ! Unfortunately my mother was easily distracted and frequently the bread was black and found to be on fire !

Yes, we had a cast iron range and fireplace like the one in Marydoll's picture. Don't remember them cooking with it though. We had a very early gas stove.

That upright fire was so good for making toast. And for just looking.

I remember the smell of the gas mantles. Such a comforting smell.

Yes, the mantles were a nightmare. You just had to touch it so lightly with the match and it had a hole in it.

Yes. The downstairs of our (very old - falling down old) house was lit by gaslight downstairs. No such luxury upstairs. Oil lamp or candles up there.

I would love to go back in time, just for a little while.

Love the pic Marydoll. Was that in a house or museum?