Glasgow's Gasworks

[cell]

I thought I would have a look at the history of gas manufacture in the various Glasgow’s gas works and see what is left of this industry. Before we had cheap plentiful gas from the North Sea, you had to make it, which meant several big chemical works situated within the city boundaries. I’ve illustrated the map below to show the main locations in the city and included some links to the Canmore site which has some great old pictures of the various works.


In 1817 an act of parliament was obtained by the Glasgow Gas Light Company giving statutory powers for producing "inflammable air" and other products from coal. Townhead was selected for Glasgow’s first significant gas works with the site being just west of the Cathedral. Any trace of it has long gone with the site cleared at the end of the 19th century and the area having been redeveloped twice in the intervening years

Tradeston Gas Works was erected by the Glasgow Gas Light Company in 1835 and expanded several times, it was taken over by the Glasgow Corporation in 1869 and eventually closed in 1970. The site still retains some function as part of the grid and the bases of two of the gas holders can be seen on GE.
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/44 ... +gasworks/

Partick Gas Works was erected by the Glasgow Gas Light Company in 1843 at the bottom of Byres Rd, closed in 1879, nothing now remains of the site.
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/15 ... gas+works/

In 1843 an act of Parliament was obtained by the City and Suburban Gas Company of Glasgow, giving statutory powers to supply gas to the City, Gorbals, Anderston, Calton, Rutherglen and places adjacent. A site was selected in Dalmarnock and work started on erecting the plant, it was taken over by the Glasgow Corporation in 1869 and eventually closed in 1956. Some of the buildings still remain and the outlines of two of the gas holders can be seen on GE.
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/45 ... +gasworks/

Temple Gas Works was built in 1871 by The Partick, Hillhead and Maryhill Gas Company, it was taken over by the Glasgow Corporation in 1891 and joined to the nearby Dawsholm site by a tunnel under the canal to form a single works. The site closed in 1968 however the two large Temple gasholders are still in situ having been used until quite recently.
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/44 ... +gasworks/

Dawsholm Gas Works was built in 1871 by Glasgow Corporation and was extended several times, along with being joined to the Temple works, a large chemical plant utilising by products was also situated on the site. The site was eventually closed in 1968 and is now a site of a modern housing development.
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/44 ... +gasworks/

Provan Gas Works was built in 1904 by Glasgow Corporation and was extended several times, becoming one of the largest in Britain, a large chemical plant utilising by products was also situated on the site. The site was eventually closed in 1980s however it still retains some function as part of the grid and three large holders are still in use, the rest of the site has been largely cleared but has not been developed and can be seen on GE.
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/45 ... +gasworks/

Helen Street Gas Holder Station, in 1949 a spiral guided gas holder and a boosting station was erected, this was remotely controlled from Tradeston Works. I believe it is still in use for storage.
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/44 ... +gasworks/

Towns or coal gas (as opposed to Natural gas or North Sea gas) was basically made by roasting coal and collecting the mixture of hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide, this process was carried out in retorts and along with the gas produced by-products of coke and coal tars and ammonia. The tars and ammonia were an important feedstock for the dye and chemical industry which often had associated plants on the gas works sites.

A second process which could utilise the coke produced in the retorts, was known as blue or carburetted water gas process. Here charges of coke were alternatively heated with air then cooled by a steam stream during which hydrogen and carbon monoxide was produced and collected.

Glasgow’s gas plants also used coke oven gas from various iron works and methane from colliers, this was then blended with what had been produced by the various processes in the works to produce a consistent product which could be stored in the various gas holders and distributed across the city.

Surprisingly, although most of the physical plant associated with gas manufacture has disappeared, much remains of the sites and the gas holders, some of which are still utilised as part of the modern distribution process.

I’m going to try and visit some of these sites over the coming weeks and hopefully get some photos of any remains, if any of you have any photos or info on the sites it would be great to see them.

[BenCooper]

Temple Gasometers:
http://www.catchingphotons.co.uk/blog/?p=415

I also definitely took pictures of the remnants of the Tradeston gasometers, but can't find them.

(PS I haven't forgotten about the spreadsheet, but still can't get the algorithm to work on WIndows 7...)

[BenCooper]

Found 'em eventually - I must get better at tagging images

Tradeston gasholders - what's left of 'em:

[cell]

Thanks Ben, great pics! I was thinking that I was going to have to climb some walls to get pictures of Tradeston but I’m too old for that malarkey! It looks like they dropped the holders and demolished the supporting framework which means there is a serious hole and a lot of steel under each of those. Did you chance your arm with a walk across the top or does even your bottle run out when dealing with 150 year old steel work?

[robertpool]

here is some Gas related items l have







Provan Gas Works

[BrigitDoon]

Towns or coal gas (as opposed to Natural gas or North Sea gas) was basically made by roasting coal and collecting the mixture of hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide, this process was carried out in retorts and along with the gas produced by-products of coke and coal tars and ammonia. The tars and ammonia were an important feedstock for the dye and chemical industry which often had associated plants on the gas works sites.

I remember looking through chemistry textbooks from the 1950's and there was a good deal about the processes and products of destructive distillation of coal. Dad used to amuse himself with the chemistry set he'd bought for me by heating coal to see what interesting smells would come from it. I played with the box, of course, while Mum was driven from the kitchen...

Bristol Rovers Football Club's old stadium at Eastville was right next to one of the city's gasworks. When the wind blew in the right direction, everyone would know about it. Officially, they claim the nickname "The Pirates", but City fans soon renamed them "The Gas". These days, Rovers fans refer to themselves as "Gasheads".

[BenCooper]

Did you chance your arm with a walk across the top or does even your bottle run out when dealing with 150 year old steel work?

I put one foot on and it creaked rather alarmingly, so I decided that drowning in ancient sludge wouldn't be a fun thing to do that day

[BenCooper]

Oh, this is from an Arrol's catalogue - isn't it lovely?

[the researcher]

I remember seeing gasometers when travelling by car from my grannies house back to fife they were on the left hand side and always seemed to be quite far down seem to recall being told that they drop down as the gas is used which being a sunday sort of made sense i suppose this would be in the late sixties early seventies i think but dont know if it was before or after the conversion to north sea gas
then again it may not have had anything to do with whether the gas was gasworks gas or north sea gas
would these have been the tradeston gasometers possibly? as the photo of them looks familiar

[cell]

Researcher, it could have been either depending on where you were coming from and your route, Provan had two large gas holders with a capacity of 16 million cubic feet, I believe the plant had a daily production capacity of more than 30 million cubic feet, Tradeston had three holders with a total capacity of 7 million cubic feet and a daily plant capacity of 7.5 million cubic feet, so I imagine if either works were not operating at full capacity over a weekend, then the holders could easily be emptied by normal consumption over a couple of days.

Robert, I like the paper work, I have a reference to the Dalmuir, Kilpatrick and Bowling Gas Company situated at Old Kilpatrick which was bought by the Partick, Hillhead and Maryhill Gas Company in 1890. I wonder if this connected to your West Kilpatrick company?

Ben, that crane is indeed a cracker, I suppose the benefit is that is partially self balancing. Do you have any other Tradestone pictures?

[BenCooper]

I'm afraid not - checked back through the backups, and there were a couple of others from the same viewpoint but not as well framed. There's not much else to see, though...

[Vinegar Tom]

Great thread Cell. Thanks for posting.

I have been in the Tradeston site , but didn't get as close as Ben did to the gas holder. There is a great picture on the Canmore site of Milan Street , which makes sense of what is there today.

[cell]

Toomse posted this a while back
This tunnel was built in 1892 to link the Temple and Dawsholm works, originally the tunnel had a full gauge railway and two 36” gas mains. It can still be seen if you’re willing to do a bit of scrambling, but both ends are fenced off so you can’t get through it.
Dawsholm end

Temple end

A couple of general pictures of the Temple gas holders

[cell]

Google Earth view of the Temple and Dawsholm sites, I'm not sure I would want a house on the site of an old gasworks but I'm sure they cleaned it up fully.

[cell]

Ah Dalmarnock on a wet afternoon, where else would you rather be? Dalmarnock was spread over two sites as you can see from the GE image.

The buildings in the North site have all been cleared and only these below on the South site remain.


Even these seem to be in danger of disappearing soon as there is redevelopment work ongoing which has removed the foot prints of the gas holders.