The wife of an Alton man who fought to preserve the town’s gas street lamp is hoping to find an expert repairer after it was snapped in half in a road accident.

Located outside 52 Kings Road, it is a sewer gas destructor lamp patented by Joseph Webb of Birmingham in 1895.

It has been a Grade II listed building since August 1999, following an application by Altonian Arthur Blackham two months earlier.

Herta Deverill, who lives in Kings Road, told the Herald about the incident on April 16.

She said: “A car towing a horse box, trying to avoid a collision with an oncoming car, hit the historic, unique in the area, working gas lamp, which was broken in two.

“Gas engineers have attended and now shut off the gas, which was pouring out unhindered. Fortunately there was a breeze which dispersed the gas.

“This one-off listed monument was championed by my late husband, John Deverill, who did his utmost to keep it going.

“This lamp represents a simple but important and beautiful link to our past in Alton, and everything should be done to get it into working order.”

Herta explained that the lamp lit the pavement by using a smelly and potentially explosive gas which formed in sewers.

She said: “It was designed to burn gas from the local sewage works, known as marsh gas. It has since been converted to burn North Sea gas.

“It dates back, originally, to the late 19th century and was converted in the 20th century. It is cast iron with a moulded pedestal, fluted tapered shaft, and ladder rest at the top.”

In a 1999 article in the Herald, Mr Blackham said it was believed to be the last lamp in southern England to burn marsh gas.

Herta concluded: “I pray that it can be restored.”