East Greenwich Gasworks - the site and building the works

The other week I was in the National Grid Archive at Warrington looking for information about East Greenwich Gas Works in the 1880s.   I assume most people know that Dome was built on the site of a large gasworks.   Before that it was ‘a barren marsh …miles away from anywhere…. right out of the way  … the roads, if so they can be called, were ankle deep in mud and slurry.’

There had been an earlier gas works in Greenwich where Waitrose now stands. I had an article about this, and some of the associated scandals, in the Greenwich Historical Society Journal a couple of years ago.  By the 1880s this works needed modernising and, as more people moved to the area, it needed enlarging. The government of the day wanted to close small inner city gas works and replace them with large out of town works.  So – a large greenfield site was needed for a Greenwich new works.

East Greenwich Gas Works was built by the South Metropolitan Gas Company originally based in the Old Kent Road. The Chair was the amazing George Livesey who was the major figure in the 19^th century gas industry - a clever ‘maverick’.  He had taken to attending the meetings of other gas companies in London to make speeches pointing out how poor their management was  Clearly therefore his own works had to be better managed than any others and by the 1880s Livesey and South Met.were on their way to becoming the leading gas supply company in London.  The new East Greenwich works was to see them lead nationally – and with a growing international reputation for excellence.

The Greenwich Peninsula – Greenwich Marsh - the site they took on for the new works in the 1880s was largely undeveloped. There was a lot of industry along the west bank mainly on sites owned by Morden College; and also were some other works near where the Pilot pub stands. On the site identified for the gas works itself – now taken up by the Dome and Knight Dragon developments – was a shipyard, a dry dock and a chemical manure works.  Otherwise the north end of the Peninsula and much of the centre was marshland, used mainly for rough grazing. Management records since the 1620s show drainage ditches interspersed with reeds, brambles, and nettles.

All that is left of the Gas Works is our soon to be demolished gas holder and the war memorial resited near John Harrison Way.  It was a large site which eventually included, in addition to the gas production site, a tar processing plant, a chemical works plus an associated Coalite plant, and a Government Research Institution.  A fleet of company owned boats delivered coal from North East England and there was a railway line into the works from Charlton.

Before the works was built the gas company had had to answer questions about the site from a committee of the House of Lords.  They were then required to buy up the ship building yard and dry dock, and to make sure that the smelliest part of the works was built as far away from Greenwich as possible.  They were also required to build what was then called Ordnance Draw Dock –the river access point which lies alongside the new hotel.Clearly the idea of ‘planning gain’ is nothing new.

It was built on marshland. A contemporary account describes: “ditches standing full of bog water” and “at high tide the river which runs round the peninsula looks ready to overwhelm it”. HoweverkwhOWit eas there is “firm soil resting on clay …. full of prostrate trees and roots and … vast numbers of hazel nutshells but no fossil remains …. water is met with inpractically unlimited quantity since it rises and falls with the tide in the neighbouring river”.  We hear how ‘Peckham Tom’ walked into a pool of boggy water up to his neck – it had been hidden in bulrushes.

The centre of the peninsula, and most of the site on which the gas works was to be built was 'market gardens of poor quality 'with' sprouting rhubarb' throughout the site. Other reminders of the rural past were the few remaining cows who lived in a shed which 'age had rendered rotten and insecure'. Perhaps the shed was the one that built here in 1815 which was of timber on a brick foundation with a thatched roof. One future gas works' employee was to remember that as a boy he had illicitly milked a cow into his cap on one hot summer afternoon. The resulting mess of 'milk, cream and hairs' led to a 'conversation' between his father and the cow keeper.

Once Docwra, the gas company's contractors, were on site any remaining cattle were impounded by two police kept for the purpose. Others who thought they might have rights on the marsh were those for whom it was a 'happy dumping ground'.  The contractors were in a 'constant state of warfare' with these dumpers. During one such running battle, Joseph Tysoe, the future works manager, only escaped serious injury when his assistant grabbed a heavy iron bar aimed at his head.

As work progressed Docwrabrought on site 'extraordinarily powerful pumping apparatus' and took borings to discover the state of the ground.  Barge after barge came loaded with clinker and heavy rubbish to use as infill, but it took 'a vast amount of effort to make a sensible impression on this wilderness'.

Slowly the works took shape. 'Looming vast against the sky is the skeleton of the great holder'. This is the holder still to be seen today alongside the Blackwall tunnel approach road. It was thought it would 'darken the sky like a mountain of iron'. The jetty too was taking shape, sinking as it was built. It was reported that it was 'allowed to go as far as they would' until it became 'as firm as a rock'. 

East Greenwich gas works would soon become the premier works in London. Itwas once seen as an example of everything that was progressive in British industry.

 Quotations above are from the works magazine ‘Co-=partnership Journal’ where retiring workers describe their experiences of East Greenwich.