Brick Lane Gas Works

 

BRICK LANE GAS WORKS

 

I was just driving up Goswell Road last Friday when I got a nasty shock.  In a  long list of recent demolitions  this one took my breath away.  What had gone had been a very decent office block and, although I wouldn't put my hand on my heart, it might have dated from 1859.  It had fronted up the  Samuel Clegg's  Brick Lane Gas Works - The Great Gas Manufactury  where they found out how to make coal gas for lighting and to sell it on a commercial scale.

 When the 'Chartered' Gas Light and Coke Company set themselves up with the revolutionary idea of  making coal gas to sell to light the public street they built the first three gas factories in the world. The one of which they were most proud  was always the one in Clerkenwell.  I have already written  about the other two, Westminster and Curtain Road., and I had meant to save Brick Lane for a big splash in the future. I had always hoped to get on site and describe it from the inside. However, needs must!  The developers will make a tidy profit on the site - it cost the Chartered Company £3,000 to buy it in 1814.

 Brick Lane closed as a gas works in 1871 when Beckton was opened  but stayed in use with showrooms and workshops. Some holders remained there until 1898.  British Gas vans could be still seen around very recently.   Perhaps they are still there and perhaps I don't recognise the name of whatever organisation has taken over now.  This site in Clerkwenwell has been in use by the gas industry for longer than any other. It is very strange if it has now passed from them without any commemoration. 

 The works opened in the world of Georgian Clerkenwell - very different from today.  Brick Lane has since become Central Street. The site before the gas moved in is shown on the Horwood Plan (1813) as a  'cooperage'. The street plan of Peartree Street, with its little kink, was much the same then. Between the site boundary and Seward Street was a burial ground and north of Seward Street was a rope walk.  All around were dye works, and chemical manufactories of all kinds.  Clerkenwell is one of those areas which turned Britain into the 'workshop of the world'. An enormous list could be drawn up of industries which started there - Hancock and  rubber, another Hancock and cables, Bessemer, Morland, endless breweries and distilleries, printworks, all sorts of workshop trades, and much much more.  Many moved out to larger premises and their London origins have been forgotten.  These trades were lit with gas from Brick Lane, and its waste products supplied many of their raw materials. Without the gas works would industry in the area have flourished so much?  What role did the works on that tiny site play in nurturing these trades and sending them out into the world?

The builders of Brick Lane Gas Works were so naive about the nature of the trade on which they had embarked that they made no provision for  coal deliveries. After this gas works were usually built on navigable water or the railway. Here everything came in by road -- imagine the coal carts in and the coke carts out.  Sulphuric acid and lime in and noxious blue Billy out to be dumped as well as tar and ammoniacal liquor for the chemical trade - all carted through the streets of Clerkenwell.

The site today seems small and  narrow - the gas works was originally on about a third.  Yet people came from all over the world to marvel at it - the cutting edge of technology.  Those big dark holders overlooking narrow Peartree Street were stared at by young enthusiasts who hoped for a job in the works.  So many famous gas engineers started like that  and were trained as one of Clegg's 'young men'.  The earliest gas industry was run by boys in their teens fired up with the excitement of it all.

 It is very difficult to know where to start with Brick Lane Gas Works. A list of the technologies developed there, and a list of the famous names who worked there would fill far more than the page I allow myself here. Perhaps it is better not to try but to just to say that this was a very very very important old gas works.

If the site is to be demolished and disposed of then an archaeologist or a historian  should have a look at it. Who knows what lies buried underground?  This was one of the earliest gas works ever, and it has been in the same ownership ever since.  There is no other site like it.  It could tell us so much.   It may be that development can take place on the site without any return to the planning process - and if so then any chance of investigation is lost.   With better luck the gas industry will stay on site and preserve what remains for the future.  But that doesn't seem to be how things happen these days ..........

 PS 2024 There are still  gas industry vehicles on site here