The choice of fuel for use in a light source was generally determined by its availability. For centuries, coal has been used as a fuel for lighthouses, in those locations that could be most easily supplied. One of the earliest lighthouses that used coal was at Newcastle-upon-Tyne which was located close to a coalfield. The physical effort involved in shipping the coal to the lighthouse site, together with the effort expended in getting it to the top of a tower, if there was one, can not be overstated.
Coal was often contained in a metal holder called a brazier of chauffer and raised to a given height above the surrounding area to give it increased visibility over the sea. An original example of a coal chauffer can still be found in the botanical gardens on the island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly, England. This chauffer was used from 1680 onwards in the old lighthouse known as Scilly, which is today a private house on the island of St. Agnes.
Coal fires were originally used on headlands and, over the years, would have been refined by the use of improved containers to allow the coal to burn more efficiently, i.e. with more light emitted per given quantity of fuel and with less smoke. This latter is always a problem because it obscures the light and creates soot which causes other disruption. Later, fires were enclosed inside structures made of arrays of panes of glass, called lanterns. Unfortunately, unless great efforts were made to control the smoke, the glass was frequently coated in soot which reduced the visibility of the fires.
There are many examples of lighthouse towers standing today which were used for coal fires in earlier times. The old tower at Skagen is a beautifully preserved example, as also is the lighthouse at Falsterbo in Sweden and the towers at North Foreland and Lizard Point in England.
Wooden lever-arm arrangements were constructed to elevate coal braziers. These were called swape lights or vippefyr, and such a device was used at Spurn Point. Because of their nature, there are no known examples of these old lights in existence today, but replicas of vippefyr can be found in Denmark and Sweden.