Gasometer at Regents Canal, London
The Victorian Gas holder was a vivid part of my childhood landscapes. Like silent, sleeping iron giants, falling and rising as gas supplies were used up and replenished across the network. No matter you went, they were there slowly breathing in and out. I think they inadvertently created a sense of identity for the UK.
They are now disappearing rapidly, dismantled by teams of engineers with cutting tools.. strut by strut they disappear in weeks, opening up landscapes in towns and cities everywhere, rendering 100 year old views utterly unrecognisable & different.
It's not that we've suddenly ditched gas for renewable energy overnight.. although that is slowly happening panel by panel, turbine by turbine. It's more to do with the fact that the UK now has a FastGasNetwork, meaning gas is pumped at pressure around the system. The simple truth is that Gasometers are now surplus to requirement, defunct iron dinosaurs from a bygone era.
While most gasometers are utilitarian in design, some earlier examples are rather ornate and in some areas local convervation groups are mounting campaigns to save the most impressive of specimens, have them listed and kept for posterity as a reminder of Victorian Ingenuity.
I agree, we should keep a few gasometers as museum specimens and while no museum could house one, there are various plans for how to keep them around if not alive. One ambitious plan is to re-purpose the structures into circular housing developments. An attractive if perhaps expensive and thus exclusive option.
Cleaning up the ground and removing the bottom of the vast tanks which you can't see at ground level is the tricky part of the clean up job and removing the tanks themselves takes far longer than disassembling the iron strut-work, so although new housing is a priority in cities like London with a burgeoning populace, it's not so straightforward to turn all sites into new houses and apartment blocks. Although there could be promise for new city gardens.. Nature needs a place in our cities and people need nature too.
The Gas network PR people have done their job well. "It's time to return this valuable land to the people of the Country" they proudly claimed when announcing the imminent demolition of thousands of gasometers all over the UK. My first thought was.. they will surely make a vast sum of money releasing all that land, although I don't know for sure if any of the land is owned, leased or licensed. It will inevitably be returned to be used for other more fitting purposes and that is a good thing.
The Landscape will continue to change as it always does when new technology replaces the old. Gasometers are from the age of Smoking Chimneys. We know how bad they were for peoples health and it's a great thing the massive smokestacks don't belch out coke fumes any longer.
Fred Dibnah became a national celebrity as the Nation's favourite Steeplejack in the 1970's and 80's as we watched in awe on TV as he single handedly felled tower after tower by hand, often blowing them. Fred was a plain speaking and incredibly erudite, engineer, steam enthusiast and boiler man from Lancashire, sadly now passed.
image copyright Christos Hatjoullis (Outerground)
Whaat? I love them. Surely they can be converted into trendy apartments or something.
yep.. as I mentioned, it's expensive to convert them into apartments but some of them will !
Very interesting piece. I too remember the old gasworks in my home town with awe and sentimentality and find it a shame that they are all disappearing. Progress eh?
awe sentimentality and a kind of fondness borne from familiarity ! they're soon to be history.. most of them haven't actually been working for quite a while.. The fastGasNetwork has been progressing quietly beneath our feet for some time ! (thanks btw)