The Great British Victorian Stink Pipe Cull

A List of the Lost

The Victorian stink pipes of Great Britain are a testament to one of the greatest engineering projects in human history: the London sewer system - a groundbreaking feat of civil engineering that not only transformed the city of London but also set a precedent for modern urban sanitation systems worldwide. It dramatically improved the lives of millions and changed the city forever.

The stink pipes have been lost to history, forgotten, left to rot, destroyed, but many still remain. Some historians have tried to catalogue them, but it is an immense task as they are spread out across the city, and even across the country. Attempts to create a database of these historic structures have made the national news.

But the greatest collection of knowledge of these last remaining memorials to Victorian endeavour exists here, in the wayfarer system!

Instead of using this as a means of protecting these precious reminders of our history, or leveraging this knowledge as a way of generating media attention for their games, Niantic have decided to remove them from the game. And not in some clean, coordinated way, but by allowing users to delete them in a toxic way. Players are destroying the record of our history, not for constructive reasons like improving the quality of the game, but base reasons of spite and vengeance.

This, to me, seems like an act of self harm, and I have made this topic so that we can list the Victorian stink pipes that as they are deleted, so that if Niantic ever come to their senses there will be a record of them all so they can be easily reinstated. If not, at least it might be useful one day for a historian tracking down these curious remnants of our past.

I have lost six in my neighbourhood, I heard from @SleepC that another faction has also lost a similar number, and dozens have gone to the north of me. And this is just the start.

Den Road Stink Pipe

Pickhurst Lane Victorian Stink Pipe

Iden Close Victorian Stink Pipe

St Mary’s Avenue Victorian Stink Pipe

Mays Hill Road Victorian Stink Pipe

Durham Road Victorian Stink Pipe

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That makes me sad. I live in the U.S. and have seen them mentioned in several science/travel documentaries - as engineering feats, social breakthroughs, groundbreaking health initiative. Even Mysteries of the Abandoned, I think - where the cameras went down into an abandoned plant and/or tunnels.

I was excited that, when I eventually get to the U.K, my game would point them out to me. I’m sure I don’t have an eye for spotting them.

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So far the cull has only affected the Bromley borough.

Hawthorne Road Sewer Vent (This sewer vent in Hawthorne Road is located near the Albyfield bus stop on the R7 bus route.)

Gundulph Road Victorian Sewer Vent (This Sewer Vent is on Gundulph Road. Gundulph Road connects to the road with a Scout Hall and the Wendover Tennis Club [Glanville Road] and eventually leads to Wendover Road.)

Clarence Road Sewer Vent (Bickley station’s platforms can be seen when one looks through the nearby fence. Also the bridge close to the Sewer Vent is for pedestrians and bikes only.)

Victorian Sewer Vent (This the second of two of Bickley’s St George’s Road sewer vents. Usually sewer vents are tall but this one is unique in that is smaller than a lamppost. It is located near the St Georges Road bridge)


The other stinkpipe in St George Road is the direction of Oldfield Road but very close to Hawthrone Road though that one wasn’t submitted by me but was a Pokemon Gym.

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I am just hoping this is a localised issue and doesn’t impact other areas. I have a few Stinkpipes in my local area. 5 or 6 have been nominated by me. These are historical Stinkpipes and have significant historical relevance. Whilst people can argue that you wouldn’t take a person to a Stinkpipe to Explore, Socialise, etc. it may get people interested in learning about the history.

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Niantic aren’t super interested about this kind of history though, as seen with this appeal decision on a Victorian lamp post from a foundry that used to be in this town - we are now renovating a “Foundry Quarter” because of it but they said its just normal and mass produced. Can see the same applying to Stink Pipes even though I dont personally agree

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Its a shame these are being deleted. Assuming pedestrian access is okay, I cant see they meet any removal criteria and I think they should be kept.

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Unfortunately, Lamposts (regardless of historical purposes) have always been seen as mass produced. Victorian Stinkpipes are not mass produced and in most cases are not in active use. Most of the British Sewers have been upgraded / modernised and the Stinkpipes have been preserved for historical posterity.

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Post boxes are mass produced too :laughing: but then Niantic doesnt like those either - they only get accepted by UK reviewers.

I just cant get over what is making a stink pipe meet removal criteria? Thats always been more strict than acceptance criteria and has to be proved to be no longer there, or dangerous in some way to be removed usually?

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Postboxes in the UK are in general Mass Produced, but also unique in that prior to ER2 Postboxes, there is an accepted view that they are historically significant. I can’t see Royal Mail replacing historical Postboxes with the current insignia.

Stinkpipes, in my view shouldn’t meet removal criteria, unless there is good reason for it.

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These structures are historic and encourage exploration. When the local school sent children out on a discover quest to find as many stink pipes as they could, all the children playing Pokemon Go won by a mile. They are not only a testament to creation of London’s historic sanitation system, but reminders of the way parts of the city have been drastically transformed. There are modern housing estates in this city where these Victorian relics tell the story of the grand Victorian houses that were torn down and built over. There are rivers lost underground that formed part of the sanitation system and whose paths are still marked by the stink pipes.

You could argue that some of these stink pipes have been repaired so much over time that they are now mostly modern materials, but many of them are intact, exactly as they were nearly 200 years ago.

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I’m not from the UK, nor have I visited there (yet!) - but I’d love to see these in person. When my mother went to the UK with a group tour, I made sure she sent me a few photos of pre-E2R post boxes, too - I really do find the history fascinating!

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The world was dumping their waste in the street, and the Victorians came up with an ambitious plan to run it underground. It got rid of cholera and saved countless lives as other countries adopted the ingenuity. Victorian stinkpipe history is all our history.

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I would offer to take you on a Great British Stinkpipe tour, but my tours tend to smell a bit.

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Or don’t smell a bit. Right - thats the point - to lift the smell above our noses.

Anyhow. They have these in Australia. Some like these have been added to the DB. But few get in. Though a couple of the larger signifcant sized ones have.

And some people call them poo sticks.

I like the history. I don’t know how many exist in any country. I mean in some suburbs are they every few hundred metres or more. Or less.

One really good point is - you are surprised by what you learn in these games. And what you start to see whereas before you just glanced by!

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I’ll be honest, I never really paid attention to the Postboxes until I started to see Postboxes submitted. And I never knew I had a few Stinkpipes under my nose (so to speak). I learnt a lot just by Wayfinding.

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Another two lost today near me:

Montague Avenue Stink Pipe

Winchester Road Stink Pipe

It’s really sad to see them go.

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I’ll raise one of my smelly socks in the street in sadness for the loss of another stinkpipe!

I am wondering, is the removal of these stinkpipes specific to a given area or is it universal? If it’s universal, will every stinkpipe everywhere in the UK that has been approved be removed? If so, could we find have an official stance from Niantic as to its eligibility? If it’s linked to a specific area, whilst I can’t expect an answer, would there be one available?

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Looking forward to the [*] cull of UK postboxes other than those with a VR cipher.

Mod Edit of unnecessary game reference.

Why would you be looking forward to that?

I’d have no problem voting for any of those stink pipes, their removal is an act of vandalism by players wanted to gain an unfair advantage.

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