They were the mysterious Gasometers, once a familiar feature in our urban landscape.It was the clever adaptability of the round storage tanks that allowed them to rise and fall with a concertina action. When in full gas storage use they had the appearance of a massive layered wedding cake and yet in periods of low demand for the fuel there was often nothing to see apart from something that resembled a small baking tin.
Gasometers, a British invention, first appeared 180 years ago and quickly caught on as an effective means of storing large amounts of gas at low pressure.
In the pre-War and pre-nationalisation era, gasometers were everywhere with over 1,000 gas companies in operation. Just about every town had its own gas works and the gasometer was the central focus. They were cast iron at the start but steel sections came later, in the 1880s.
The technology was basic but effective with the rim of each chamber sealed by water and with no room for air inside, the holder prevents the otherwise volatile early town gas from igniting.
Natural gas, locked deep into subterranean pockets of continental land masses and the oceans was still very much a thing of the future, and instead households and industry relied on town gas, which resulted from carbonising coal. It was a dirty and polluting process but nevertheless played an important role in keeping active the many belching factories of the old style mass manufacturing industry. Production of town gas was a major contributing factor to the stifling and lethal pea souper fogs and smogs that were a common problem in UK cities and towns well into the 20th Century.
While gasholders were never conventionally beautiful they exhibited a fair degree of decoration.In St Pancras and Bromley-by-Bow in London the design was in a Grecian-type finish as an example of architectural influences on purely functional installations but the style was not adopted and carried through in other locations because it required a lot of maintenance.
More recent attempts have been made to soften their presence.Gasometers in Harrow, Middlesex, and Bromley, Kent, were painted in an effort to blend in with the local surroundings. A holder in Harrogate was painted with fuchsias for a Britain in Bloom contest and wishes have been granted on the odd occasion to hang "happy birthday" banners on the steel lattice framework or the fully expanded cylinders.
Most gasometers were to be found in industrial settings or on the edge of the built up extent of our towns and cities but could still dominate a landscape or rooftop view.
A few in very prominent locations did attain a popular and cult status, the most famous being the giant storage tank that was adjacent to the Oval cricket pitch in south London and could be seen on TV coverage of club and test matches to become an international sporting landmark.
Transco, the pipeline arm of the former British Gas monolith intends to dismantle virtually all its 550 gasometers across the country. Only a handful will remain and then only because they are Listed Buildings.
Advances in pipeline technology and the ability to predict levels of demand mean there is no longer any need for the stockpiling of supplies of gas in these massive storage cylinders.
Some of the sites which stood under and around the gasometers have cost millions to remediate from contamination so that the land can come back into some form of economic use. The ground on sites where town gas was previously manufactured can be heavily contaminated with a substance commonly known as 'Blue Billy' consisting of spent lime that becomes fouled with sulphur and sometimes cyanogens giving its distinctive blue colour.
Some of the more architecturally pleasing gasometers have been converted into residential and commercial use, perhaps one of the best examples being in Vienna, Austria.
The removal of the Gasometers from our urban environments has generally been carried out with little or no public protest or even interest. One gas utility company did commission a community artist to provide a lasting record of a few of the holders, including St Mark Street in my home town of Hull.
Most of us who grew up to the backdrop of these drab canister structures will have associated them with an old world image and equally drab and dreary economic times.
And remember, even gas holders get depressed sometimes....................................................
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