page_title: Smog
section_title: London
hierarchical_section_title: Smog / Areas affected / United Kingdom / London
caption_attribution_description: English: A film crew recreates the atmosphere of a Victorian London smog or pea-souper. This street scene is actually being filmed in the central courtyard of Somerset House, and the smog is artificially generated using a smoke machine. The film director (probably Simon Cellan Jones), on the right, is explaining his ideas for the scene which is being filmed. Whilst the cameraman next to the lamp post is operating a steadicam and wearing the harness required to support it. The actor walking towards the group is wearing a bowler hat. The production was for the TV movie Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (IMDB) at Somerset House in London.
context_page_description: Smog is a type of intense air pollution. The word "smog" was coined in the early 20th century, and is a contraction of the words smoke and fog to refer to smoky fog; its opacity, and odor. The word was then intended to refer to what was sometimes known as pea soup fog, a familiar and serious problem in London from the 19th century to the mid-20th century. This kind of visible air pollution is composed of nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, ozone, smoke and other particulates. Man-made smog is derived from coal combustion emissions, vehicular emissions, industrial emissions, forest and agricultural fires and photochemical reactions of these emissions.
  Smog is often categorized as being either summer smog or winter smog. Summer smog is primarily associated with the photochemical formation of ozone. During the summer season when the temperatures are warmer and there is more sunlight present, photochemical smog is the dominant type of smog formation. During the winter months when the temperatures are colder, and atmospheric inversions are common, there is an increase in coal and other fossil fuel usage to heat homes and buildings.
context_section_description: In 1306, concerns over air pollution were sufficient for Edward I to (briefly) ban coal fires in London. In 1661, John Evelyn's Fumifugium suggested burning fragrant wood instead of mineral coal, which he believed would reduce coughing. The "Ballad of Gresham College" the same year describes how the smoke "does our lungs and spirits choke, Our hanging spoil, and rust our iron."
  Severe episodes of smog continued in the 19th and 20th centuries, mainly in the winter, and were nicknamed "pea-soupers," from the phrase "as thick as pea soup". The Great Smog of 1952 darkened the streets of London and killed approximately 4,000 people in the short time of four days (a further 8,000 died from its effects in the following weeks and months). Initially a flu epidemic was blamed for the loss of life.
  In 1956 the Clean Air Act started legally enforcing smokeless zones in the capital. There were areas where no soft coal was allowed to be burned in homes or in businesses, only coke, which produces no smoke. Because of the smokeless zones, reduced levels of sooty particulates eliminated the intense and persistent London smog.
  It was after this that the great clean-up of London began. One by one, historical buildings which, during the previous two centuries had gradually completely blackened externally, had their stone facades cleaned and restored to their original appearance. Victorian buildings whose appearance changed dramatically after cleaning included the British Museum of Natural History. A more recent example was the Palace of Westminster, which was cleaned in the 1980s. A notable exception to the restoration trend was 10 Downing Street, whose bricks upon cleaning in the late 1950s proved to be naturally yellow; the smog-derived black colour of the façade was considered so iconic that the bricks were painted black to preserve the image. Smog caused by traffic pollution, however, does still occur in modern London.
caption: Victorian London was notorious for its thick smogs, or "pea-soupers", a fact that is often recreated (as here) to add an air of mystery to a period costume drama
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