The Gas Council Engineering Research Station (ERS) was a former engineering

research institute A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often i ...

Tyneside Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt. The population of Tyneside as published i ...

, situated in a distinctively-shaped and listed building, now occupied by the

Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside North Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It forms part of the greater Tyneside conurbation. North Tyneside Council is headquartered at Cobalt Park, Wallsend. North Tyneside is bordered by N ...

History

Design

It was designed by Ryder & Yates in 1965, who also designed the

Television Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne The Television Centre, Newcastle upon Tyne, also known by the street name City Road, was home and headquarters of the ITV contractor for the North East region, Tyne Tees Television, between 1959 and 2005. History The studios were originally cre ...

. Ryder and Yates had formed in 1953 in Newcastle. It was built under the former

Northumberland County Council Northumberland County Council is a unitary authority in North East England. The population of the non-metropolitan unitary authority at the 2011 census was 316,028. History It was formed in 1889 as the council for the administrative county of N ...

. The Northern Gas Board had its main headquarters in Killingworth. It was first announced in November 1965. It was built in anticipation of North Sea gas. Killingworth was a north-east new town, known as Killingworth Township. It was planned to open in the summer of 1968. It was built on the site of

Killingworth Colliery Killingworth, formerly Killingworth Township, is a town in North Tyneside, England. Killingworth was built as a planned town in the 1960s, next to Killingworth Village, which existed for centuries before the Township. Other nearby towns and ...

. The modernist architecture is developed from

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

and

Berthold Lubetkin Berthold Romanovich Lubetkin (14 December 1901 – 23 October 1990) was a Georgian-British architecture, architect who pioneered International style (architecture), modernist design in Britain in the 1930s. His work includes the Highpoint I, Hi ...

Construction

It was built from 1966-67 on a 10-acre site. An extension was added from 1975-76 to contain a restaurant. It was Grade II* listed on 27 January 1997 by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

(

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 ...

since 2015).

Structure

It is situated directly between the B1505 to east and the

East Coast Main Line The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broa ...

(ECML) to the west, in the west of Killingworth. Nearby to the south was the former distinctively-designed headquarters, Norgas House, of the

Northern Gas Board The area gas boards were created under the provisions of the Gas Act 1948 enacted by Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government. The Act nationalised the British gas industry and also created the Gas Council. History From the early 19th century ...

, also designed by Ryder & Yates, until North Tyneside agreed its demolition in 2012. Block A housed the Engineering Research Station and Block B housed the School of Engineering.North Tyneside Enhancing the Built Environment
/ref>

Function

It housed the main engineering research function of British Gas, where the

National Transmission System The United Kingdom's National Transmission System (NTS) is the network of gas pipelines that supply gas to about forty power stations and large industrial users from natural gas terminals situated on the coast, and to gas distribution companies th ...

(NTS) was designed, although British Gas also operated a Midlands Research Station (MRS) and a London Research Station (LRS). The research centre's first function was to design the pipeline system around the UK. It researched

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

and pipeline technology, including avoiding any cracks in the UK's pipelines. British Gas left the site in 1995 when it brought its research stations onto a single site at Loughborough. The leader of North Tyneside Council at the time, Brian Flood, was also a senior manager at the Research Station, and he facilitated the sale of the site to the Council. However in 2008, North Tyneside moved most of its functions to Cobalt Park close to the A19.

References

External links

100 Places NE

Something Concrete and Modern
{{authority control 1967 establishments in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside Education in the Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside Engineering education in the United Kingdom Energy research institutes Grade II* listed buildings in Tyne and Wear Grade II* listed industrial buildings Natural gas infrastructure in the United Kingdom Research institutes established in 1967 Research institutes in Tyne and Wear