Description
No. 4 Gasholder was built in 1890 by Hanna Donald and Wilson Ltd (guide frame) and James Goldie and Son (tank) for the Paisley Gas Light Company. The two-tier circular frame is 23 metres in height and has 18 cast iron Doric columns on plinths, braced by lattice girders of guilloche pattern. There are cast panels of the Paisley town coat of arms on each plinth. Some plinths have dated makers' panels. Two telescopic iron-sheeted shells (18.25 m in diameter) are set in a sunken brickwork tank. Repairs to the lift sheeting took place around 1963 and to remedy subsidence in 1992, a new concrete base was poured over the existing tank base. In 2000, lubrication systems were installed and grip carriages were overhauled.In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: the shells and the tank of No. 4 Gasholder.
Statement of Interest
No. 4 Gasholder is the oldest surviving column guided gasholder in Scotland and is now a rare survival of its building type. The gasholder, which has striking architectural features, is a local landmark. It is also an important reminder of an industrial process that is now redundant.
Age and Rarity
Paisley Gasworks
The Paisley Gas Light Company, created by an Act of Parliament dated 31 May 1823, operated the former gasworks at Well Street, located in the west of Paisley. This site started producing gas on 11 March 1824. The gasworks originally supplied gas for interior lighting to local factories and commercial premises. Throughout the 19th century, the Paisley Gas undertaking was the only supplier of gas to the town and by 1845 it had laid over 50 miles of main pipes covering almost every street in Paisley.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Paisley was a thriving industrial town known throughout the world for its production of textiles and thread. There was an ever increasing demand for gas in Paisley to cater to the town's intensive industrial output as well as its expanding population's need for gas at home. This rapid industrial and domestic growth led to the alteration and expansion of existing gas undertaking sites in the town, including the Well Street site.
Site manager and engineer, George Hislop, designed a smaller gasholder at Well Street in 1877. The Number 4 gasholder, erected in 1890, was based on Hislop's earlier gasholder and was much larger with a capacity of 42,475 cubic metres. There were a total of four gasholders on the site in 1896, alongside the large suite of structures related to the gas production process. The same holders were still being used on site in 1912 and by 1938 an additional, fifth, holder was located immediately west of Gasholder Number 4. At its peak, the Well Street site had five holders and also had ancillary buildings which included coal stores and breakers, a retort house, condensers, purifiers, governor house and other structures related to the gasification of coal. By 1949, there were four gasholders on site with one of the smaller and oldest gasholders at the west of the site being removed. The 1877 gasholder was demolished a number of years ago and the Number 4 gasholder of 1890 is the only remaining holder at the Well Street site (2017).
Brief history of gas manufacturing
The early years of gas manufacturing focused on small-scale private production for lighting. The gasification of coal was first developed by Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald in 1781. Cochrane came across coal gas while heating coal to obtain tar. This by-product was captured and used to light rooms in his home.
In 1792 William Murdoch, a Scottish engineer and inventor, pioneered the process of manufacturing gas for industry and was the first to use coal gas to light his entire house and office in Redruth in Cornwall. Murdoch soon broadened the practical use of gas for lighting factories and established the first small gasworks for Boulton and Watt in Smethwick, Soho, Birmingham in 1798. Frederick Winsor, a German inventor, was granted a Royal Charter in 1812 creating the world's first public gas company called the Gas Light and Coke Co. which principally supplied gas for street lighting and households in London.
In Scotland, the first towns to receive a public gas supply were Balfron, Dumbartonshire and Deanston, Perthshire in 1813. This was soon followed by the first large-scale gasworks at Townhead in Glasgow, in operation from 1818. By the mid-1820s, all the major towns and cities across Scotland had a ready supply of gas available.
By 1859, there were over 1,000 gasworks across Britain with most found in urban centres near large concentrations of population. Electric lighting was introduced and offered competition to gas from 1880 but improvements in gas burners enabled gas to compete with electric lighting until the 1950s.
By the start of the 20th century, many gasworks were publically owned with some still operating as private companies. In 1948, the Gas Act nationalised the majority of gasworks that provided a public supply creating 12 local gas boards. The Gas Act of 1948 amalgamated and nationalised the gas producers and suppliers of England, Scotland and Wales. Prior to the Act, there were 1046 private and municipal gas companies operating in the UK. A Gas Council with twelve Area Boards were set up across the UK. The Scottish Gas Board took over the operations with around 200 gasworks in Scotland.
As the industrialisation of the country intensified and as urban populations grew, so did the scale of gas production, its supply and its storage. The method of gasifying coal did not change significantly from the time it was first produced on a large scale for public supply in the early 19th century until coal gas was replaced with natural gas from 1959.
Gasworks were necessarily connected to significant transport networks such as railways and canals to ensure easy access to coal. The works was made up of a number of specialist building types to produce the gas for distribution.
Coal was brought onto the gaswork site and burned in retorts (large iron tubes) in retort houses to produce gases which were captured. The gases were condensed and purified before being stored and/or fed into the mains pipes for its onward supply. Storing gas made its production more efficient and it ensured that the demand for gas could be met especially during peak hours.
Gas was stored in a gasholder consisting of a circular iron container known as a lift, set within a water sealed below ground tank with an inlet from the works on-site and an outlet ultimately leading to the mains pipe. The larger gasholders had telescopic lifts which usually had from two to four sections and were guided by the outer circular frame. The first telescopic holder was built in Leeds in 1824.
Gasholders were further developed from 1890 with the introduction of spiral guided frame holders, first seen at Northwich in Cheshire. These holders were mostly built above ground, saving the effort and expense of excavating a deep, large tank. The holders still retained a telescopic feature where each shell could rise guided by internal rails mounted to the inside of the neighbouring shell. The rails ran at 45 degrees allowing the shells to rise and store additional gas. Such spiral holders were frequently over four tiers in height and allowed greater storage of gas with lower construction costs as no external guide frame was required.
Each regional Gas Board controlled every aspect of gas supply in its region. From the period of nationalisation of the industry in the 1940s leading up to the discovery of North Sea gas in the 1960s, most town gasworks gradually became gas reforming plants and coal was no longer burned onsite to produce gas. By the 1970s, natural gas completely replaced the production of gas by coal and oil gasification. The British Gas Corporation took control of the twelve regional Area Boards under the Gas Act of 1972. Oil price increases in 1973 and 1979 further fuelled the demand for gas as a source of power. The discovery of major gas deposits in the North Sea, around this time, provided a means to meet the increased demand for natural gas.
Following the privatisation of the industry in 1986, private companies introduced new processes which gradually modernised the supply of gas. The mains system and distribution networks were adapted and the complex of buildings previously needed to produce gas were systematically decommissioned, many of which have since been demolished. Gas was still being stored in gasholders but their number was steadily decreased as natural gas was more compressed and needed less storage space.
Many gasworks sites have since been completely decommissioned with the land cleared or repurposed. From 2010, gas has no longer been stored in holders connected to the mains.
Designated gasholders
As the technology of storing and distributing gas continually developed since it was first applied to domestic use in the early 19th century, historic structures related to the earliest inception of the industry are now extremely rare in Scotland with one small early site remaining at Biggar (from 1839, altered in 1914 – the site is listed at category A). What does remain of what we recognise as the prototypical gasholder is now very limited and is confined to a small number of sites which retain gasholders and some with a scattering of ancillary buildings dating to the end of the 19th and the early 20th century, a point in time when the industrial output of Scotland was nearing its peak. There is currently one listed gasholder of this period at Granton, Edinburgh (1898-1902 – listed at category B). The only other comparable sites include the largest surviving gasholders in Scotland at Provan (both 1903), gasholders at Temple Street Gasholder Station (1893 and 1900) and at Dunfermline Gasholder Station (1893 and 1922). There is very a small number of early gasworks for public supply remaining with some listed buildings, but apart from Biggar, none of these retain gasholders.
A greater number of early gasholders have survived in England than in Scotland and a small number of these (17) have been listed. The concentration of population in England in large cities has meant that there were larger, earlier gasworks established in major industrial centres, with London being the most prominent.
No 4 Gasholder, Paisley
The gasholder at Paisley is understood to be the oldest surviving telescopic gasholder in Scotland that provided a public supply of gas and it is among a very small number of structures of its type which now survive. It is the last surviving gasholder with a column guided frame in Scotland. It is a striking example of a utilitarian structure enriched with classical detailing and which is also a reminder of the former industrial use of the site. At the time of its construction, the holder had the largest tank in Scotland and its inauguration and 'switching-on' was a cause of celebration within the town of Paisley.
Architectural or Historic Interest
Interior
The interior of the gasholder was not seen. However, it is likely, based on the construction drawings and decommissioning works of other similar gasholders that it is typical for gasholders of this date. The below ground tank was of brick and clay puddle construction. The holder itself, is an iron shell and was constructed from riveted pieces of iron cladding to form the two-tiered domed holder. A rounded mound, known as the dumpling, would sit in the centre of the tank and saved unnecessary excavation work. This part of the gasholder is not proposed to be included in the listing.
Plan form
The plan of the gasholder is standardised with the tank and holder and frame being circular on plan to accommodate a tank.
Technological excellence or innovation, material or design quality
By 1890, tiered (or telescopic) column-guided gasholders were not new. Developed by 1840, they gradually increased in size, specification and in ornamental decoration over the course of the 19th century until they were largely superseded by steel frame-guided holders in the late 1890s. While not the first of its type in Scotland, the column frame gasholder at Paisley is now the earliest and the only one its type which survives. It is also the most ornamental survivor with classical influences such as tiered Doric columns while providing an industrial storage facility.
Contemporary photographs of the gas undertakings at Well Street in Paisley show that the new gasholder was very similar in style to the smaller and earlier holder of 1877. The photographs also show that the upper tier of columns of the 1890 holder were adorned by a large cast iron finials which no longer survive; historical images indicate they were removed between 1951 and 1971.
This gasholder is the most architecturally distinctive example in Scotland and it is the last column guided frame in the country. Other closely contemporary examples in Scotland are frame guided making use of framework standards which are essentially utilitarian in design. The closest example of a similar gasholder in terms of its design in Scotland is the No 1 Gasholder at Granton. The Granton example, which is made of mild steel, is often documented as column guided but it is essentially frame guided with slight column detailing, effectively a vertical rib, to the external face of the framework. Also at Granton, each standard is adorned with a large finial enhancing the ornamental aesthetics, however, such finials no longer survive at Paisley. The Paisley gasholder was clearly designed to be ornamental as well as functional.
George Hislop was appointed Manager and Engineer of the Paisley Gas Undertaking in 1865. Prior to that, he served as Engineer and Manager for four years at the Coatbridge Gas Light Company. Hislop also held similar positions previously in Lanark and Falkirk. Interestingly and remarkably, Hislop began his gasworks management career at the age of only 13. Upon the death of his father, who was manager of Lanark gasworks, Hislop and his 15 year old brother took over the management role of the site. Hislop was renowned within the gas industry for his inventiveness and striving towards increased efficiency. Over his career, Hislop developed a lime-revive system and improvements to vertical retorts in an attempt to increase gas production efficiency levels. Hislop designed and oversaw the construction of a substantial gasholder at Paisley in 1877.
The 1890 gasholder at Paisley was also designed by Hislop and was based upon the earlier holder. The major difference was the two-tier, telescopic holder design which vastly increased the maximum capacity of the new gasholder. Such telescopic holders were patented in England in 1824 and became a tried and tested technology. However, they arrived later in Scotland and spread slowly. Hislop's design for the gasholder of 1890 was, at the time, hailed as the largest gas tank in Scotland. This new, larger gasholder provided Paisley with a more reliable supply of gas and allowed greater efficiency of gas production to assist with keeping gas supply costs for consumers to a minimum.
Setting
The gasholder sits in its original position at the east of the site and is a prominent feature in the semi-industrial urban townscape. The immediate setting of the gasholder has changed since the time of its construction as all the contemporary gasworks buildings have been cleared with only some mid-20th century remnants onsite. The gasholder is a local landmark which is clearly visible from nearby roads and vantage points. Today, the gasholder stands above a busy road junction in a mixed industrial area which still reflects its original general setting in an area of industry.
Regional variations
There are no known regional variations.
Close Historical Associations
There are no known associations with a person or event of national importance at present (2017).
Listed as part of SGN Estate Listing Review, 2016-2017.
External Links
External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.
Recommended Books
Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)