IN the dark days of January 1835, Wallingford first experienced the joys of gas-light.

The Oxford Chronicle reported on Jan 10th: "The lamps were lighted for the first time on Monday evening, when a public dinner was provided at The Lamb cooked by Gas.

"It is intended to erect an Obelisk in the Market Place on which two or three large lamps will be placed.

"These, together with the public lamps and private burners, will have the effect of adding much to the beauty of this pretty little place."

The gas supply came from the newly built gasworks of the Wallingford Gas Light and Coke Co, situated on the riverside just north of Wallingford Bridge.

The works had a tall ‘highly ornamental’ chimney, which towered above the bridge.

The river site was chosen as convenient for delivering essential coal to the works and for the disposing of the effluent ‘gas tar’ directly into the river.

The stone ‘Obelisk’, to hold the three new gas lamps, was built on the site of the town’s old ‘Bull Ring’, complete with oval carved panels stating when and why it was erected and displaying the town’s insignia of the Portcullis and the Knight on Horseback.

The town corporation paid for the cost of lighting the lamps.

The obelisk lamp-stand remained as a central feature of the Market Place until 1921, when it was finally removed to make way for the present war memorial (it can still be seen in the SW corner of the Bullcroft, though its words are much eroded).

Gas lamps were soon installed in important buildings in the town, including the town hall and St Mary’s church in the Market Place.

St Marys’ superintendent, Mr Potts, took charge of the new church lamps during services, turning the valve up and down to create appropriately dramatic effects, such as dimming to a low light for the sermon but giving ‘a flood of living light’ when the organ struck up at the end.

The Oxford Chronicle reported in April 1837 that ‘John Potts has gained universal admiration by this ingenious and novel mode of harmonising the lights and shadows of ecclesiastical worship'.

By the 1860s, pollution of the river with gas tar was being seriously questioned and, since the railway had arrived in Wallingford in 1866, transport of coal could now be made by rail, so the decision was made to build a new gasworks near the station on the west side of the town.

Construction was already in progress in 1875 when high flood water from the river caused part of the original gasworks to collapse, leaving the town without gas for several weeks before the new works could be completed.

The ruins of the old riverside works were finally cleared away in February 1883, to be replaced in 1891 by the much more attractive Town Landing Stage and Boathouse, which survive today.