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City of Westminster Gaslights Short Walk

Enchanting, meandering route through the Royal Parks and the West End under the warm glow of gaslights. Through parks, squares & courtyards, along alleyways, secret passages, lanes, paths & streets.

Easy London

History

This is a list of previous times this walk has been done by the club (since Jan 2010). For more recent events (since April 2015), full details are shown.

Date Option Post # Weather
Thu, 20-Mar-25 Evening Walk - City of Westminster Gaslights Part II: Westminster, Whitehall, Covent Garden, St. Giles and the Embankment (St. James's Park to Embankment) 9 pleasant and warm
Thu, 06-Mar-25 Evening Walk - City of Westminster Gaslights Part I: Royal Parks of the West End, St. James's and Westminster (Lancaster Gate to St. James's Park) 6 cloud free but mild

Thursday 20-Mar-25

Thomas G
Length: 6.8 km (4.3 mi)
Net Walking Time: 1 ½ - 2 hours
Meet: St’ James’s Park Station at 18.45 hours (Broadway exit, at street level). St. James’s Park Station is a stop on the District and Circle Lines.
Finish: Embankment Station, a stop on the District and Circle Lines as well as the Northern (Charing Cross Branch) and Bakerloo Lines and very close to Charing Cross Mainline Station.
Both stations as well as the wh ole route are within Zone 1.
The blurb for the full route, split over two Thursdays:
“In 1807, London was the first city in the world to light its streets by gas, which was much cheaper and produced brighter lights than the previously used candles or oil lamps. More than 200 years later, there are still about 1,300 gas-fuelled street lights left, bathing their surroundings in a markedly warmer, yellower glow than electric lights. About 270 of those are in the City of Westminster, preserved after a campaign to stop the Council from replacing them all on cost grounds.
This meandering route through the Royal Parks of the West End, St. James’s, Westminster, Whitehall, Covent Garden, St. Giles and the Embankment passes a fair few of those gaslights, while leading through parks, squares and courtyards and along alleyways, secret passages, lanes, paths and (mainly) residential streets, while also passing numerous well-known and not so well-known sites of historical, architectural or political interest, many of which will be new even to born Londoners.
The route is rewarding in light as well as in darkness, as some of the parks and alleyways are closed at night, while some of the gaslights in those areas are on even during the day.”


Eat/Drink: Numerous options en route and at the end. Check the pdf for details.

For walk directions , map, photos and gpx/kml files click here . T=short.68
  • Thu, 20-Mar-25

    Knowing that half the people that were on the first part of the walk a couple of weeks ago wouldn't be able to make it today, I was not surprised when no one else had arrived at the meeting point even 4 minutes after the appointed time. A bit sad, but there you go, life can be tough for walk posters! It was great weather for an evening stroll though, even if I knew the route inside out, so off I set as just the 1.

    5 minutes later I received a phone call from another one of those that had been on part 1, asking whether I'd be coming on the walk and proclaiming that 'they' were waiting for me. Turns out another 8 had met at another exit from the station, and were indeed still there.

    I duly waited at Westminster Abbey for them to catch up and on we went together. Unlike part 1, this part of the walk has various areas that are closed at night, so some of the lights and atmospheric squares and parks we had to circumvent.

    Group cohesion proved a problem once we hit Westminster tube station and almost all the areas beyond that, purely for the amount of people everywhere: tourists, after-work drinkers, commuters, the lot.

    But we always re-grouped after a while. Once in Covent Garden, 2 split off to go home.

    5 of the rest stayed in Gordon's Wine Barat the end (outside table with a heater or two) until half past 10, sorting out the world (and areas beyond).

    A pleasant evening out in fine company (eventually).

    9 pleasant and warm

Thursday 06-Mar-25

Thomas G
Length: 6.2 km (3.9 mi)
Net Walking Time: 1 ½ - 2 hours
Meet: Lancaster Gate Station at 18.45 hours (at street level). Lancaster Gate is on the Central Line and a short walk from Paddington Station.
Finish: St. James’s Park Station, a stop on the District and Circle Lines.
Both stations as well as the wh ole route are within Zone 1.
The blurb for the full route, split over two Thursdays:
“In 1807, London was the first city in the world to light its streets by gas, which was much cheaper and produced brighter lights than the previously used candles or oil lamps. More than 200 years later, there are still about 1,300 gas-fuelled street lights left, bathing their surroundings in a markedly warmer, yellower glow than electric lights. About 270 of those are in the City of Westminster, preserved after a campaign to stop the Council from replacing them all on cost grounds.
This meandering route through the Royal Parks of the West End, St. James’s, Westminster, Whitehall, Covent Garden, St. Giles and the Embankment passes a fair few of those gaslights, while leading through parks, squares and courtyards and along alleyways, secret passages, lanes, paths and (mainly) residential streets, while also passing numerous well-known and not so well-known sites of historical, architectural or political interest, many of which will be new even to born Londoners.
The route is rewarding in light as well as in darkness, as some of the parks and alleyways are closed at night, while some of the gaslights in those areas are on even during the day.”


Eat/Drink: Plenty of options en route plus at the end The Two Chairmen (Greene King), The Sanctuary House Hotel (Fuller’s), the Blue Boar, The Feathers (Nicholson’s) or The Old Star (Greene King).

For walk directions , map, photos and gpx/kml files click here . T=short.68

  • Thu, 06-Mar-25

    The Central Line (westbound) was a bit troubled, so we waited 5 minutes or so beyond the posted time, then set off, with a cloud-free sky, mild temps and a half full moon, ie ideal conditions for a walk based around not-quite-so-bright streetlights (of which there were many).

    We took 95 minutes to get to near St. James's Tube, where the old adage that Thursdays are the new Fridays was proven to be very true indeed: stacks of people outside every pub going, extreme noise levels inside and long waits at the bar to order.

    6 of us ate in the (possibly) noisiest dinner environment ever, at The Sanctuary House, then tubed it home. cloud free but mild