The Quadrant

The picture of the Quadrant, Regents Street is from Ackermann's Repository. The street was designed by Nash to link Regent's Park to the hub of London in Westminster. The area for Regent's Park had been marshy fields known as Marylebone Park up until 1811 when ownership reverted to the crown.

There was a recent question on the lights of London which have been described in England in 1815 - as seen by a young Boston Merchant by Joseph Ballard -
"At night a good many of the streets and stores are lighted up with gas. The brilliancy of light thrown out this way is astonishing; compared with it the oil lamps look like a "dim candle at noon." It is prepared in some building erected for its purpose and conducted through the streets in pipes like an aqueduct, consequently all the propreitors have to do is to turn a cock and apply a candle and the house or street is lighted."

This is quote is contemporary to the date of print above so may well be as Ballard saw them - the close up of the lamp to the left is taken from the bottom left of Akermann's Print above. The close up of the street lamp on the Right is also from a comtemporary Ackermann print called Fire In London.

Return to Regency Collection