History of the Regent Street and Oxford Street Christmas Lights in London.

One of the signs that Christmas is close is the turning on of the Christmas lights in Regent Street and Oxford Street in central London. This year the lights were switched on by Bill Nighy, Ashley Jensen, Kelly Clarkson, Matt Cardle and Emma Bunton on the 8^th November. The switch on this year was also accompanied by a firework display and a gospel choir.

The lights stretch down the length of the grand Georgian thoroughfare of Regent Street in London’s Mayfair. I can remember visiting the Christmas lights as a child in the late 1970s and many Londoners view the switching on of the lights as official start of the Christmas shopping period. The lights and lamp shades light up the dark London night with the magic of Christmas.

Although the lights are now a firm fixture on the Christmas calendar there history does not extend back as far as the famous Blackpool illuminations. The Blackpool illuminations started back in 1879 at the creation of electric light. The Regent Street lights are relatively new comers with the first set of lights being installed in 1953. There had been Christmas trees in 1948 and partial lights from 1949 but the first full set of lights came in 1953.

The lights in the more popular but less grand Oxford Street first started in 1959. . A number of different celebrities have had the pleasure of pushing the button to turn on the lights in Oxford Street. The celebrities chosen to switch on the lights are like a history lesson in English popular culture. In 1982 it was Daley Thompson the athlete and other notable people have included Bob Geldof in 1985 and the various soap stars and pop bands.

The lights in both streets have carried sponsorship for a number of years with West End shows such as Scrooge , films such as Flushed Away, mobile phone firm Nokia, ASDA and even Birdseye frozen food.

The lights are paid for by the traders in the two streets and because of the harsh economic climate in England in the mid 1970’s there were no Christmas lights between 1972 and 1977.

This year’s Oxford Street lights are giant twinkly snowflakes and in Regent Street we have branded lights for the family film Arthur Christmas. The twin thoroughfares no longer have a monopoly on Christmas lights in central London. There are now impressive displays in a number of other locations including St Christopher’s Place, Carnaby Street, Marylebone, Convent Garden, St Pancras Train Station and Trafalgar Square.

The lights in Trafalgar Square focus around the huge Christmas tree which has been in place since 1949. A tradition that pre dates the Regent Street and Oxford Street lights. The tree is a free gift from Norway to the London and is always decorated in a Norwegian style. The UK provided safe haven for the Norwegian Royal Family and Government during the Second World War and the tree is sent every year as a token of the Norwegian people’s thanks for the help provided in those dark days.

London’s Christmas lights give the city a magical feel during the run up to Christmas and if you are in London during December it is always worth a trip to see them. The lights in Oxford Street and Regent Street intersect at Oxford Circus and this getting out at Oxford Circus tube station. This is a great place to start exploring the Christmas lights in London. You can then walk down Regent Street, see the Carnaby Street lights and carry on down via Shaftsbury Avenue to Trafalgar Square. It is a lovely half an walk through the magic of Christmas.

Tony Heywood ©

The Blackpool Illuminations Early Years

Lamp Shades

The Blackpool Illuminations are the one of the highlight of the late autumn early winter in the north west of England. The annual festival of light takes place between early September for 66 nights in the seaside town of Blackpool on the Irish sea coast. Blackpool is a magnet for UK holiday makers and the population of the town increases in the months the lights are switched on.

It takes a massive twenty two weeks each year to install over a million lights, lampshades, wiring and rigs that produce the wonderful display. It then takes another nine weeks to take down the lights and store them away once the Illuminations have finished.

The origins of the Blackpool Illuminations reach back into the late 19th Century when the local council invested in the first electric street lights in England and maybe even the world. The "artificial sunshine" lights were first used on Blackpool promenade in September 1879. The eight arc lights emitted light that equaled 48,000 candles and the switching on of the lights was advertised across the UK. The lights caused a national sensation with somewhere between 60,000 to 100,000 visitors to the town to witness the new technology.

A royal visit that of Princess Louise in May 1912 is viewed as the birth of the modern day Illuminations. The Princess was visiting to open a new part of the seafront promenade and the local council strung up a garland of lamps to provide an extra touch of glamour to the opening. In comparison to the modern displays the first Illuminations where fairly small. Only 10,000 lights were used in the show. The lights were a huge success and the Blackpool local chamber of commerce and a leading business people in the town lobbied the town council to run the lights again in September.

The lights were a huge success drawing visitors to the town from all over the UK. The Princess Parade as the lights were know a the time were deemed so successful that the council looked to stage the event in September every year. The lights in 1913 were another massive draw but sadly the outbreak of World War I,in 1914, meant that the lights were not put up again until 1925.

Once the Blackpool Illumnations returned the size and scale of the displays grew and grew. The lights were now much large and more complex in design and decoration. The length of the display also grew from the small scale display that had informed the first Princess Parade back in 1912. In that first display post the First World War the Illuminations ran the length of the seafront from Manchester Square to Cocker Square and in 1932 the first moving displays were added. The popularity of the yearly light show was increasing all the time but was again curtailed in 1939 by the outbreak of the Second World War. Although the lights were very briefly in place in 1939 they were soon replaced by a huge searchlight on top of Blackpool Tower.

The difficult economic climate after the end of the war meant that the lights didn't return in all their bright eyed glory until 1949.

Louis Oliver (c)

I have a passion for lighting, lamps and everything associated with light. Visit Lighting Works for wonderful Lamp Shades and Light shades

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The Early Years of the Blackpool Illuminations.

The Blackpool Illuminations are the one of the highlight of the late autumn early winter in the north west of England. The annual festival of light takes place between early September for 66 nights in the seaside town of Blackpool on the Irish sea coast. Blackpool is a magnet for UK holiday makers and the population of the town increases in the months the lights are switched on.

It takes a massive twenty two weeks each year to install over a million lights, lampshades, wiring and rigs that produce the wonderful display. It then takes another nine weeks to take down the lights and store them away once the Illuminations have finished.

The origins of the Blackpool Illuminations reach back into the late 19^th Century when the local council invested in the first electric street lights in England and maybe even the world. The “artificial sunshine” lights were first used on Blackpool promenade in September 1879. The eight arc lights emitted light that equalled 48,000 candles and the switching on of the lights was adverstised across the UK. The lights caused a national sensastion with somewhere between 60,000 to 100,000 vistors to the town to witness the new technology.

A royal visit that of Princess Louise in May 1912 is viewed as the birth of the modern day Illuminations. The Princess was visiting to open a new part of the seafront promenade and the local council strung up a garland of lamps to provide an extra touch of glamour to the opening. In comparsion to the modern displays the first Illuminations where fairly small. Only 10,000 lights were used in the show. The lights were a huge success and the Blackpool local chamber of commerce and a leading business people in the town lobbied the town council to run the lights again in September.

The lights were a huge success drawing visitors to the town from all over the UK. The Princess Parade as the lights were know a the time were deemed so successful that the council looked to stage the event in September every year. The lights in 1913 were another massive draw but sadly the outbreak of World War I,in 1914, meant that the lights were not put up again until 1925.

Once the Blackpool Illumnations returned the size and scale of the displays grew and grew. The lights were now much large and more complex in design and decoration. The length of the display also grew from the small scale display that had informed the first Princess Parade back in 1912. In that first display post the First World War the Illuminations ran the length of the seafront from Manchester Square to Cocker Square and in 1932 the first moving displays were added. The popularity of the yearly light show was increasing all the time but was again curtailed in 1939 by the outbreak of the Second World War. Although the lights were very briefly in place in 1939 they were soon replaced by a huge searchlight on top of Blackpool Tower.

The difficult economic climate after the end of the war meant that the lights didn’t return in all their bright eyed glory until 1949.

Louis Oliver

For more information about lighting, lamp shades and lighting design visit lighting works.