Comments on: The Gasometers Of Bethnal Green

By: mamaligadoc

mamaligadoc — Sun, 27 Dec 2020 12:28:09 +0000

With respect !!!

By: Elizabeth cornwell

Elizabeth cornwell — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 12:30:42 +0000

I have always loved Gasometers!What a pity that more & more are being demolished.Victorian engineering was wonderful!I love it!

By: Andrea Kirkby

Andrea Kirkby — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 17:47:50 +0000

These gasholders occupy land that could be more profitably used for housing.

So do many hospitals, parks, libraries, and other public amenities. Not to mention churches…

We are getting close to knocking down the whole of London to build luxury flats (with the accompanying 10% of ghetto ‘affordable’ housing). I look at the riverside now and can hardly recognise the London I used to work in; it’s beginning to look like a bad copy of Seattle.

We need to save icons like these gasholders. We need to save a sense of place for ordinary people. Not stately homes, not Titians, but just a few of those old buildings and monuments that give London a character, that make you sure you’re in London, and not some ersatz glass-and-chrome capital of Mammon.

By: Roger Carr

Roger Carr — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 22:35:20 +0000

I visited one in Germany where an architect had installed a very modern viewing gallery on the top level, so that you could walk around and admire the views . . . a sort of horizontal London eye. There was also a small cafe and tables . . . we sat out for an hour at least, the air was wonderful. I’ve quite forgotten which city it was in!

By: Jay Everett

Jay Everett — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 14:37:36 +0000

I have lived in Bethnal Green for most of my 7o year life to date, and even now live within walking or cycling distance of these two towers. When I was young, the Gas works was still in operation and I can recall being quite fascinated by the constant change in the heights of the two storage containers which would rise and fall as they were filled and drained on a regular basis. I recall also the narrowboats and barges fetching and carrying their loads to and from the works on a regular basis, and the area was quite a local hive of industry around that time. Waterborne canal traffic was still fairly active in my early teens and watching the various loads of coal and coke, timber, and I think large reels of what seemed to be paper, transported to who knows where, and for who knows what purpose, around the country on the open topped 70 footers chuntering their way along with dignified but purposeful progress. Most of the powered boats were powered by relatively low horsepower diesel engines that made the very distinctive sort of ‘chuff- chuff- chuff sound, that can still be heard on some of the preserved working boats that operate around the system, and on some of the expensive privately owned holiday or live aboard narrowboats that are now quite common. Although I have not found anyone else around with similar memories, I am sure I have a genuine recollection of a number of horse drawn boats still working at the time also, and seem to recall actually patting or feeding hay to some of the horses as they waited for boats to come through locks in a number of places.

These two towers have dominated the local skyline for so long, it will undoubtedly be quite strange when they finally disappear, which sadly I guess they must. Whilst it is right that we should endeavour to preserve and protect significant items from our industrial past in order to provide future generations with some tangible evidence of their history, cannot of course keep everything simply because it is old. These (and other similar gas towers), definitely had a stark beauty of their own when they were surrounded by industrial buildings and machinery of the same era. If they are left simply hovering, or casting a menacing shadow over parkland or new housing developments, they will become an ugly, unsightly vision in the local scenery, and all the more so if they are left to rot to a point where they are declared unsafe. Better that they should be dismantled and donated to one of the Living Industrial Museums, and/or some parts of them subsequently re-assembled in a sympathetic artwork in a suitable and appropriate location.

By: Neville Turner

Neville Turner — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 19:37:52 +0000

These Gasometers were always strange and to me an early science fiction vision against the evening sky line in and around the canals of east London they excercised my imagination as to how they funtioned,they are indeed icons of a Victorian past some should be preserved as part of our historical heritage,they could be part of any parkland redevlopement.

By: Wondercat

Wondercat — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 19:29:26 +0000

Dresden has transformed one of its gasometers into a marvellous venue for art. The panorama — Panometer — of Asisi, displaying the baroque city, is a grand accomplishment (http://www.asisi.de/index.php?id=7#asisi_index_id_70). How sad were London not to meet this standard!

By: Gary Arber

Gary Arber — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 16:58:17 +0000

In the war a large gasholder at Romford gasworks was shot up by a German Fockewulf 190 fighter. There were a large number of jets of burning gas all over the top, an employee named Stewart went on top with buckets of wet clay and smacked a handfull of clay over each burning jet, putting them out. I did not hear of him being given a medal
Gary

By: aubrey

aubrey — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 14:05:38 +0000

I would guess that the circumferential ring beams are probably wrought iron as are the lattice type columns: whereas the solid columns are made of cast iron. These C I columns are meant to sustain compression stresses only and wrought iron although not as robust in compression are more able to withstand bending stresses. These structures are icons of Victorian engineering and it a pity to see them all disappear. Perhaps some of them can be preserved even if it would mean relocation.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 14:05:09 +0000

These are wonderful reminders of our industrial heritage and so distinctive. I have seen these incorporated into other parks abroad successfully. If Battersea power station can be preserved than surely so can these. Thank you GO for ever bringing to the attention of a wider audience wonderful reminders of our past that are in danger of being destroyed.