The images above and below show unusual tall structures in prominent street locations, both dating to the early years of the last century. Above, the post seems to be in the garden of 'Sea View' on Main Street, Lower Largo. Below, the structure is attached to the roof of 'Fir Park Cottage' on Lundin Links' Emsdorf Street. These are connected with street lighting and would hold lamps during the darker months. During the summer these would be removed and cleaned.
In the mid-19th century, according to newspaper reports, some Fife towns and villages were looking at "the prospect of our streets now being lighted with gas" and were "putting up posts and lamps" and looking at employing a lamp lighter "in season". Other towns at the time were not so fortunate. On 20 December 1849 the Fife Herald reported that in Kennoway "there are no lamps to illuminate the streets" and "everyone must splash through the mud and mire the best way he can, walking is often dangerous and always disagreeable". It was suggested that there, in the absence of a gas works, perhaps "a few oil lamps could be got, at no great expense, to dissapate the gloom of our streets, during the long dark nights of winter, when there is no moonlight".
Information regarding the early street lighting of Lundin Links and Lower Largo is harder to find but by 1900 a fund-raising exercise was carried out to bring street lighting to Lundin Links and Drummochy (see feature further below from St Andrews Citizen). The street lighting of the villages has been through a number of upgrades since.
In the mid-19th century, according to newspaper reports, some Fife towns and villages were looking at "the prospect of our streets now being lighted with gas" and were "putting up posts and lamps" and looking at employing a lamp lighter "in season". Other towns at the time were not so fortunate. On 20 December 1849 the Fife Herald reported that in Kennoway "there are no lamps to illuminate the streets" and "everyone must splash through the mud and mire the best way he can, walking is often dangerous and always disagreeable". It was suggested that there, in the absence of a gas works, perhaps "a few oil lamps could be got, at no great expense, to dissapate the gloom of our streets, during the long dark nights of winter, when there is no moonlight".
Information regarding the early street lighting of Lundin Links and Lower Largo is harder to find but by 1900 a fund-raising exercise was carried out to bring street lighting to Lundin Links and Drummochy (see feature further below from St Andrews Citizen). The street lighting of the villages has been through a number of upgrades since.
The first public street in the UK to be lit by a series of gas lamps on free-standing posts was Pall Mall in Westminster in 1807. Although they gave off a meagre light, it was an improvement on previous lighting and led to similar lamps being installed all over the country. Until street lights could be automatically lit and extinguished, lamplighters worked their way around streets at dawn and dusk with long poles.
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