Newcastle Sewer Gas Ventilation and Street Lamp

Newcastle sewer gas ventilation and street lamp.

Also known as sewer gas destructor lamps, this type of gas street light was designed to burn off methane from sewers, reducing bad smells and remioving dangerous methane from building up in the sewers. A dome in the roof of the sewer collected dangerous methane, and this was directly connected to the lamp. The updaft created by a perpetual flame at the top of the lamp drew the methane up and harmlessly burned it off as carbon dioxide. However there was not enough methane to keep the lamps burning consistently 24 hours a day, so an improvement added a supply of town gass to keep the perpetual flame burning.