Gas Heritage: unloved or unsavable?

Whilst Britain is regarded as the home of the gas industry, thanks to the genial Scot William Murdoch and his team of engineers at Boulton and Watt in making it a commercial reality. In a few years time this maybe easily overlooked unless more can be done to preserve or redevelop what remains.

Most of the important gas heritage has gone from the UK. You would have to travel to Australia to find a surviving vertical retort house. Those buildings which remain, do so on the whole, because they were sold many years ago repurposed and forgotten about. Most of the gas producing plant and its associated buildings were cleared when gas manufacturing era ended, some exclusions remain. We are lucky to have preserved the National gas museum at Leicester (https://www.nationalgasmuseum.org.uk/) and preserved gasworks at Fakenham (England, https://fakenhamgasmuseum.com/), Carrickfegus (Northern Ireland, https://www.flamegasworks.co.uk) and Biggar (Scotland, https://www.whatsonlanarkshire.co.uk/listings/biggar-gasworks-museum/), this is a real big plus. For all its coal, industry and links to the gas industry, Wales unfortunately only has a preserved gasholder frame in Cardiff. There is no record of what remains of gas industry heritage in the UK, there will be buildings with forgotten heritage reused or derelict and a register of such buildings would be of interest, but its a big job for which no funding would be available given the potential 3000+ former gasworks sites in the UK.

Gasholders are the one remaining remnant, which has caught the eye of late, as they are gradually being demolished and they are almost all disconnected from the gas network as surplus to requirement as this form of low pressure storage is no longer required. The owners (primarily the gas distribution companies), have little flexibility or incentive financially which would allow them to do anything other than demolish the structures as they can be a Health and Safety, nightmare given they been a tempting object for some to climb. Finance would have to be made available to do this via their current funding settlement  (OFGEM). 

The UK had a unique fleet of gasholders, pretty much one of every design ever made (a few rare exceptions accepted), from the early tripod guided, central column guided, simple single column guided, telescopic enlargements, a number of important frame guided designs, flying lifts, spiral guided, wire rope guided holders, German waterless designs, the Wiggins gasholders to the final high pressure bullet tanks. What remains were primarily those gasholders at the fringes of the network and those which maintained large volumes of gas, i.e. those gasholders which had a job until the end. This has left a collection of primarily new spiral guided gasholders with a few examples of frame and column guided gasholders in the mix. 

It is sad to see them go, but for their current purpose, they are no longer needed anymore, the gas can be stored elsewhere much easier, safer, cheaper and in greater quantities. As mentioned due to current funding within the gas industry, there is no mechanism for which funding can be released. It is only possible to to repurpose these structures, if they are within the constraints of a high value property development, such as Kings Cross (https://www.kingscross.co.uk/gasholder-park) or if a developer has real vision as to how such a structure could bring an Iconic presence to their development as in Australia (https://gasworksplaza.com.au/). This pretty much leaves such structures to only remain in a few select London locations, the same location that most of our surviving gas lamps remain.    A number of gasholders have been listed, primarily in London, some within areas which could afford there effective regeneration into a new project. The Kings Cross Project (pictured) has shown what can be done when you have vision, engineering skill and the flexibility of high value land for finance, however, it is not long since this area was a no go zone of dereliction. 

As our gas heritage fades, the importance of the gas industry in other countries seems to be mixed. The USA is a prime example of a once huge industry has little to nothing to show for its past, no manufactured gas museums and few surviving structures with some of these at risk. France does not fair much better in terms of preserved structures, although it does have a wonderful organisation COPGAZ which put on great exhibitions on gas heritage. (https://www.copagaz.fr/) and helped initiate AFEGAZ a trans-European heritage body (https://www.copagaz.fr/collectionneurs/afegaz). 

To look for excellent regeneration of these sites you need to look at the Austria, Netherlands, Poland and Germany and then the fringes of Northern, Eastern and Southern Europe.  Austria has the Iconic Gasometer City outside vienna  (https://www.wiener-gasometer.at/en). The Netherlands has Westergasfabriek (https://www.project-westergasfabriek.nl/english) and a few other notable developments. Poland has three excellent gas museums of various sizes (https://www.muzeum.gazownictwa.pl/index.php?setlang=en). Germany leads the world in its many such examples, from the preserved gasworks at Newstadt (https://www.gaswerk-neustadt.de/texte/seite.php?id=6368), preserved MAN gasholder at Oberhausen (https://www.gasometer.de/en/) to to a diving school located in an old gasholder tank!(https://www.tauchrevier-gasometer.de/). Both Spain (Sabadell, https://www.fundaciongasnaturalfenosa.org/museo/) and Denmark (Holbro, https://www.gasmuseet.dk/) are home to excellent gas museum, well supported by their energy industries. The Nordic countries and Baltic states contain some fine preserved examples of gas related structures, The whole gasworks in the case of Stockholm is proposed for sympathetic redevelopment (https://www.svd.se/mitt-stockholm-hjorthagen--gasverk-och-skyskrapa#sida-5).

This fact is once again demonstrated by two recent developments in Germany the redeveloped gasometer site in Pforzheim (https://www.gasometer-pforzheim.de/ ) and now the redeveloped Gaswerks Hotel in Hamburg (https://www.gastwerk.com/hotels-hamburg/). Beyond the gas museums, the total achievements in recent years in preserving the heritage of our gas industry are the excellent Kings Cross redevelopment.  What is it about Germany that means it places much greater significance and with it finance on the preservation or more importantly sympathetic redevelopment of the industrial architecture of their gas industry? No doubt the answer is not simple or straight forward but it may relate to the high respect the Germans place of their engineers and scientist, than is offered in the UK?

The battle to preserve examples of the buildings was probably lost many years ago, when most of the building associated with the gas manufacturing industry were demolished by the area Gas Boards and British Gas Corporation, although a record would prove if much survives. The dwindling Gasholder fleet does remain and National Grid have undertaken an innovative recording process with MOLA (https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/gasholders-recording-and-rethinking-our-recent-industrial-past) within this a selection of gasholder which have been listed, including the worlds oldest at Fulham and the biggest remaining collection of gasholders at Bromley by Bow. Whilst further listing are very unlikely in England, there is hope with the recording activities described, a record will remain of what has been lost and maybe other listed gasholders can be preserved or preferential repurposed for a new life beyond gas whilst retaining the heritage value.

Whether gas heritage becomes more widely appreciated and loved beyond the few, will probably be decide what is saveable, Only time will tell.