Great Peter Street

 

A Well Known Gas Works in West London

 Hansard records a House of Lords discussion on 1st March 1975 about the demolition of the Department of the Environment's Marsham Street, SW1, building. Viscount Ullswater told the House that this was the site of 'the first public gas works'.

 From the gas historian's point of view the site is anything but obscure. The Gas Light and Coke Company's Great Peter Street gas works must be the best known in the world!  It was the 'first operational public gas works', set up by Winsor, Grant, Hargreaves and Barlow, and largely designed by Samuel Clegg. It first supplied gas for lighting in September 1813. I would refer interested readers to Sterling Everard (History of the Gas Light and Coke Co. Benn Bros, 1949) and to E.G. Stewart, (A Historical index of gasworks past & present in the area now served by North Thames Gas board, NTGas, 1958).

 Before 1811 the site, Providence Court, had been the site of a Cudbear works. This was a lichen and ammonia based dye for which the process had been developed in Scotland by Charles Mackintosh but illicitly passed by one of his workers to a Mr. Grant. It may be co-incidental that the first Chairman of the Gas Light and Coke Co. was also a Mr. Grant.

 When Westminster Works was closed for gas making in 1875 two large holders were built there. They appear on contemporary maps and anyone who walks down Peter Street today can see that these holder sites appear to match the large circular structures on which the 1960s office block rests. E.G. Stewart explained that in 1941 the tanks of the two holders were converted into 'heavily reinforced underground strongholds each equipped to house several thousand Government officials ..joined by tube railway to similar strongholds'. Stewart gave no source for this information which has been repeated in several books on 'secret' or 'underground' London.  Viscount Ullswater told the Lords that 'the towers of 2 Marsham Street are built on the rotundas of two large gasholders'.

 Over the years I have met people who claim to have seen inside the rotundas, which are alleged to go down at least four storeys.  This begs the question of how these gas holder tanks from the 1870s could have been deep enough for thousands of civil servants and a tube railway. Does anything remain of the actual tanks? If so it would be of exceptional interest to the industrial archaeologist.  Marsham Street is to be sold, perhaps to developers, and 'when demolition takes place the base of the rotundas will be removed and contamination will be dealt with' (Vis. Ullswater again). We can be sure that the Ministry will have removed anything of real interest long before that. Meanwhile, is there an industrial archaeologist with security clearance who can go and have a look?

This article includes information taken from A. & N.Clow, The Chemical Revolution, Blatchworth, London, 1952 and material from the City of Westminster archives deptartment.

 

Mary Mills