Where gaslight still glows on

When Meg Campbell sees that familiar gentle glow, she knows she's home in Jones Hill.

In a narrow alley lined thickly with trees, behind a row of brick townhouses, off Windermere Road, stands a lone gas lamp, lighting up Campbell's part of Dorchester.

''It's a neighborhood sweet spot," said Campbell, an eight-year resident of the hilly urbanscape. ''I drive by and I pause. It's like someone left the light on for you. I know I am home when I see it. It's always on."

Quietly flickering across Boston's back alleys and streets, these relics of a bygone era, some of which date back to the 1830s, continue to illuminate parts of the city.

A century ago, more than 10,000 lamps cast their glow over the city's streets. Today there are about 2,847 working gas lamps left in Boston, according to a Boston city official, most in Beacon Hill and Charlestown and the others scattered around the city.

Sometimes, it takes a bit of quizzical squinting to find them.

The Jones Hill gas lamp is not alone. Gas lamps have been as much a part of the architecturally sensitive and history-respecting city on a hill as the red-brick and wrought-iron settings for its brownstones and bowfronts.

In Dorchester's Melville Park and in pockets of Jamaica Plain and the South End, as well as Beacon Hill and Charlestown, the four-sided gas lamps quietly burn with a steady supply of gas and incandescent charm.

An anonymous lamp-lover has paid tribute to Jamaica Plain's lamps in a website that maps their secret locations:

http://users.primushost.com/~rik/gaslamps/pgt.html

''It's not unusual to see a surviving gas lamp hidden in an alley or down a cobbled driveway," says the site. Photos on the site show them standing behind homes, in yards, and on small hills. One lamp is said to be from October 1880.

In the Melville Park neighborhood near Fields Corner, 28 gas lamps encircle Wellesley Park like candles on a cake.

''They accentuate the grand Victorian architecture of the homes," said Ken Smith, president of the Melville Park Neighborhood Association. Neighborhood lore has it that the city wanted to rip the gas lamps from their posts and replace them with modern electric lamps in the early 1980s, Smith said. But residents protested and the gas lamps stayed.

''It's a nice sign how the city still values history by maintaining them all these years," said Smith.

On Beacon Hill, which has about 1,100 gas lamps, and in Charlestown, which has 1,105, members of neighborhood groups decorate them for the Christmas holidays.

On Beacon Hill, the Streets and Sidewalks Committee conducts an annual survey to determine whether any of the lamps need maintenance or repairs, and report their findings to the city's public works department -- to ensure the gas lamps are kept in ''tiptop" shape, according to their website.

Because of city budget cutbacks, the Beacon Hill Civic Association is encouraging its residents to clean the mantles on lamps near their homes, said Suzanne Besser, executive director of the association.

Ask her about the gas lamps and what they mean to the neighborhood, and Besser, well, lights up.

''It keeps this historic ambience in the neighborhood," she said.

Charlestown has a mix of old gas lamps and new ones made in the old-fashioned style that were installed in the past decade, according to Robert Grady, president of the Charlestown Preservation Society.

''They add a tremendous amount of Old World charm to a neighborhood," said Grady. Some of the lamps are part of the Freedom Trail, he said.

In 1928, as many as 10,000 gas lamps still lighted the city streets, and more than 150 lamplighters turned them on and off by hand, according to old news clippings. In 1869, city officials boosted their pay from 2 to three cents a lamp. One man, with horse and wagon, could light about 100 lamps an evening. The hand-lighting ended about 1916-1917 when mechanical clocks were installed in each lamp.

One Boston city architect is tickled when he stumbles upon a forgotten gas lamp during construction projects on city property.

''It's not common. It's a hidden gem," said John Dalzell, a Boston city architect. ''There are little remnants here and there. You turn a corner and you wonder, 'What is this doing here?' They are just out of sight."

Like neighborhood street clocks, he says, these local fixtures become part of the community they serve. They also become neighborhood -- shhh! -- secrets, he added.

''It speaks to the subtlety of the urban fabric," Dalzell said. ''As much as we are a dense community, there are still things just a few of us know."

Johnny Diaz may be reached at jodiaz@globe.com