The Bromley-by-Bow gasholders are a group of seven cast iron Victorian gasholders in Twelvetrees Crescent,

West Ham West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham. The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancien ...

and named after nearby

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, char ...

(now Bromley-by-Bow) in the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

. Built between 1872 and 1878 to store gas from the nearby Bromley gasworks, the site stopped storing gas in 2010, and is currently a

brownfield site In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land prev ...

. They are thought to be the largest group of Victorian gasholders in Britain, with the

Victorian Society The Victorian Society is a UK amenity society and membership organisation that campaigns to preserve and promote interest in Victorian and Edwardian architecture and heritage built between 1837 and 1914 in England and Wales. It is a registered ...

calling them "a true symbol of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

History

Historically, the site was marshland on the

River Lea The River Lea ( ) is in South East England. It originates in Bedfordshire, in the Chiltern Hills, and flows southeast through Hertfordshire, along the Essex border and into Greater London, to meet the River Thames at Bow Creek. It is one of t ...

. In the early 1800s,

William Congreve William Congreve (24 January 1670 – 19 January 1729) was an English playwright and poet of the Restoration period. He is known for his clever, satirical dialogue and influence on the comedy of manners style of that period. He was also a mi ...

built a factory for his

Congreve rocket The Congreve rocket was a type of rocket artillery designed by British inventor Sir William Congreve in 1808. The design was based upon the rockets deployed by the Kingdom of Mysore against the East India Company during the Second, Third, an ...

s on a 14 acre site. Bromley-by-Bow gasholders location map

In 1870, the

Imperial Gas Light and Coke Company The Gas Light and Coke Company (also known as the Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company, and the Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company), was a company that made and supplied coal gas and coke. The headquarters of the company were located on Ho ...

began work to build their largest

gasworks A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space. Early gasworks Coal ...

at Bow Creek near

, to compete with the

Beckton Gas Works Beckton Gasworks was a major London gasworks built to manufacture coal gas and other products including coke from coal. It has been variously described as 'the largest such plant in the world' Winchester C (Ed), ''Handling 2,000,000 tons of coa ...

of their major competitor, the

Gas Light and Coke Company The Gas Light and Coke Company (also known as the Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company, and the Chartered Gas Light and Coke Company), was a company that made and supplied coal gas and coke. The headquarters of the company were located on H ...

. The works would be around 170 acres in size, replacing the rocket factory. Prior to completion of the Bromley gasworks, the Imperial was absorbed by the Gas Light and Coke Company (GLCC). To store the gas produced at the gasworks, nine gasholders were built north of the gasworks between 1872 and 1878, designed by engineers Joseph Kirkham, Thomas Clark and Vitruvius Wyatt. Gas was delivered to nearby factories, homes and businesses from 1873, and was originally used for

gas lighting Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directl ...

. Over time, gas was also used for heating and cooking. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the site was bombed in 1940, damaging several of the gasholders. Gasholder number 5 was subsequently removed, and the frame of gasholder number 3 was removed, leaving a circular lake. In 1949, the GLCC was nationalised, with the site falling under the ownership of the

North Thames Gas Board The North Thames Gas Board was an autonomous state-owned utility area gas board providing gas for light and heat to industries, commercial premises and homes in south-east England. The board's area of supply, encompassing , included parts of ...

. After the discovery of North Sea natural gas in 1965, gasworks were subsequently closed across the UK - with the Bromley gasworks closing in 1976. The gasholders remained, used to store gas under compression prior to use. The Bromley gasworks located to the south of the gasholders were subsequently redeveloped into an

industrial park An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a business park or office park, ...

in the later half of the 20th century.

Heritage protection

In 1984, the gasholders were collectively

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. This heritage protection was upgraded in 2021, with each gasholder individually listed, as well as the entire group.

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

notes that they are "among the most aesthetically distinguished and finely detailed gasholders ever built", with

Doric Doric may refer to: * Doric, of or relating to the Dorians of ancient Greece ** Doric Greek, the dialects of the Dorians * Doric order, a style of ancient Greek architecture * Doric mode, a synonym of Dorian mode * Doric dialect (Scotland) * Doric ...

and

Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to: *Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible: **First Epistle to the Corinthians **Second Epistle to the Corinthians **Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox) *A demonym relating to ...

columns, decorative ironwork, and they follow classical architectural rules. They also note that the gasholders are a "unique architectural grouping", as the largest group of Victorian gasholders in the UK. Nearby to the gasholders, the Twelvetrees Crescent Bridge, the statue of Sir Corbett Woodall (former governor of the GLCC) and the Gas Light and Coke Company war memorials are also listed.

Future

In 2010, use of the site to store gas ended. The site is now owned by

Cadent Gas Cadent Gas is a British regional gas distribution company that owns, operates and maintains the largest natural gas distribution network in the United Kingdom, transporting gas to 11 million homes and businesses across North West England, West ...

, who oversee the national gas distribution network in the UK. Various proposals to reuse the site have been suggested, including converting them to an urban park for

industrial tourism Industrial tourism is tourism in which the desired destination includes industrial sites peculiar to a particular location. The concept is not new, as it includes wine tours in France, visits to cheesemakers in the Netherlands, Jack Daniel's disti ...

, or a

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological g ...

using the gasholder structures. There is no public access to the site, however the gasholders are visible from nearby Twelvetrees Crescent,

Three Mills The Three Mills are former working mills and an island of the same name on the River Lea. It is one of London’s oldest extant industrial centres. The mills lie in the London Borough of Newham, but despite lying on the Newham side of the Lea, ...

and from the London, Tilbury and Southend railway line. In 2018, they were named among the top ten endangered buildings of the Victorian and Edwardian eras in a survey released by the

. The Victorian Society has pushed for greater preservation of gasholders, noting that "by their very size and structure, cannot help but become landmarks.

hey Hey or Hey! may refer to: Music * Hey (band), a Polish rock band Albums * ''Hey'' (Andreas Bourani album) or the title song (see below), 2014 * ''Hey!'' (Julio Iglesias album) or the title song, 1980 * ''Hey!'' (Jullie album) or the title s ...

are singularly dramatic structures for all their emptiness." ,

Berkeley Homes The Berkeley Group Holdings plc is a British property developer and house-builder based in Cobham, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History The company was founded by Tony Pidg ...

(under their St William brand, which specialises in regeneration of brownfield sites) proposes the redevelopment the site for housing, while refurbishing and keeping all seven remaining gasholders. This has already occurred at other developments in London, such as the Oval Gasholders.

References

{{Coord, 51, 31, 30, N, 0, 0, 12, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Grade II listed industrial buildings Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Newham Gas holders West Ham Industrial archaeological sites in England Industrial history of London