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Volatile Heritage

St Pancras gasholders
One of the most striking and remarkable groups of Victorian gasholder frames in the world is currently being dismantled to make way for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link terminal at St Pancras. Fortunately, storage, with the prospect of a new lease of life elsewhere, rather than destruction awaits most of these functionally obsolete structures, including the uniquely conjoined Siamese Triplets. For those gasholders not statutorily protected, the future is bleak a scenario mirrored throughout the country, with only 22 examples currently listed, scheduled or in the care of museums. Over the next four years,TRANSCO, owner of the great majority of gasholders, will demolish all structures not listed or scheduled, because gasholders have been superseded by modern, high-pressure gas storage technology. English Heritage commissioned the London Gasholders Survey to address this situation by providing, for the first time, the technological and typological understanding to establish criteria for the evaluation of significance leading to the conferral of protection. Derek Kendall (photographer) and Jonathan Clarke (Investigator) from Architectural Investigation recently accompanied London Division caseworkers and representatives from the London Borough of Camden, Railtrack and CTRL to document through photographs the dismantling of the St Pancras survivors.

The current dismantling of the celebrated St Pancras gasholders underscores the transience of this functionally obsolete, highly endangered category of Victorian industrial engineering. A pioneering study recently commissioned by English Heritage will help safeguard the future of the most important survivors, both in London the centre of the gas industry and throughout England

St Pancras gasholders
The atmospheric backdrop for numerous film scenes, including Hitchcocks early noir-classic The Ladykillers, the St Pancras gasholders were always meant to be seen and admired.They were built as the showpiece of the Imperial Gas Light and Coke Companys St Pancras gasworks during its Victorian zenith, in response to Londons insatiable demand for heat and light as suburban houses and streets sprawled ever outwards. In common with most other gasworks, components from the first, early-19th-century phase of the industry were replaced later in the century with larger capacity, more technologically advanced structures.The seven surviving gasholder frames at St Pancras all date from the late 1870s and 1880s, although many make use of tanks from the 1850s and 1860s. Collectively they form one of the most extraordinary groups anywhere.They comprise:

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English Heritage/Derek Kendall

View looking south to St Pancras station and hotel through the Siamese Triplets, perhaps the most iconic of all gasholders

Nos 10, 11 and 12 (187980; designer John Clark), Grade II.The interconnecting triplet formation of the three-tiered guide frames an adroit structural response to the problem of building on a cramped canal-side site is both magnificent and unique. As a result of the London Gasholders Survey, we now know that they are a development of Joseph Clarks earlier two-tiered designs at Bethnal Green (18656) and Bromley-by-Bow (187282), built for the same company. Similarly, the survey provides an overall typological compass within which to place the guide frames of the Siamese Triplets. No 8 (1883; designer John Clark), Grade II. The last surviving example of John Clarks work, this double-order, double-tier guide frame incorporates certain modifications from the triplet type, notably octagonal pedestals designed to accommodate external holdingdown bolts. Nos 3, 13 and 14 (188687; designer George Trewby).This distinctive group presaged the introduction of horizontally stiff girders for increased robustness, having affinity with the wind screen of the St Pancras train shed.

All of the St Pancras gasholders have been decommissioned to make way for the rail link. Under the terms of the agreement between English Heritage and the rail link developers, London Continental Railways, the latter are obliged to dismantle the listed gasholders carefully and to hold the component material in store until an alternative use is found.There is no such obligation towards the unlisted gasholders.

English Heritage/Derek Kendall

The London Gasholders Survey


Undertaken by Malcolm Tucker, a leading engineering historian and industrial archaeologist, the London Gasholders Survey will assist English Heritage in making informed recommendations to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for the statutory protection of gasholders in London.This work, the first of its kind anywhere in the country, was commissioned in June 1998 by Dr Chris Miele, then of the Historical Analysis and Research Team (HART) of English Heritage, because of a lack of any synthetic understanding of the technological and historical significance of this class of structures. Fourteen intact and unlisted later-19th-century gasholders were selected for detailed study.These fourteen structures, sited at Bethnal Green, Poplar, Hornsey, Kensal Green, Battersea, Kennington and Old Kent Road, form

the basis of the survey, but the findings have wider significance because the gasholders are placed within wider historical, geographical and technological contexts. In particular, the establishment of a typology for guide frames the cylindrical skeleton of columns, girders and (sometimes) diagonal bracing built around the perimeter of the tank provides a much needed point of reference for comparing these and other structures in relation to both structural and aesthetic criteria. Jonathan Clark Investigator Architectural Investigation

By telescoping two, three or more concentric cylinders or lifts inside each other, the holders could be made taller and hence of greater capacity without using more ground-space, an especially important consideration for confined, inner-city sites.The introduction of telescopic holders, however, resulted in greater mechanical complexity in the arrangement and detailing of the guidance systems. For three-lift holders, such as No 13, three separate brackets or carriages were required to support the rollers which engaged with the rails attached to the guide frame

The great majority of the gasholders investigated were photographed with a largeformat camera by Sid Barker of the London Architectural Investigation team. These photographs, and those of the St Pancras structures by Derek Kendall, can be viewed at the London National Monuments Record, 55 Blandford Street, London W1U 7HN;Tel. 02088200; email london@rchme.gov.uk

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