Interior-detail of bank of hand-fired retorts and ascension pipes in retort house
SC 358462
Description Interior-detail of bank of hand-fired retorts and ascension pipes in retort house
Catalogue Number SC 358462
Category On-line Digital Images
Copy of LA 1218
Scope and Content Hand-fired retorts inside Gasworks, Biggar, Lanarkshire Biggar Gasworks, a typical small town gas works, was founded in 1839 by Biggar Gas Light Company. In 1911 it used 400 tons of coal yearly to serve 320 consumers and over 100 street lights. The hand-stoked furnaces heated the coal tar in the retorts to release the gas. It was then cooled in an external bank of condensers, purified and pumped into one of the two gasholders. Coal-gas was first piped to customers from a central gasworks in London in 1812. Despite its fumes, gas soon replaced oil for commercial lighting because it allowed longer working hours and gaslit buildings were safer and cheaper to insure. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/358462
File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap
Attribution: © RCAHMS
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