All you ever wanted to know about how we got our power across Greenwich and Woolwich

 I am a great admirer of Mary Mills and her work which over the years has revealed the industrial archaeology of where I grew up.

Entitled “Power Generation Sites in Greenwich and Woolwich”* it is her most recent book and explores all aspects of how power was supplied across the borough and beyond.

Here can be found descriptions of the many and varied sources of power from wind, water and tidal mills along with coal, gas and electrical power.

And includes “'Woolwich's 'Secret City' - the Royal Arsenal - along with the oldest power station, as we would understand it, in the world, the largest installation for town gas storage ever and one of the first to generate power from domestic waste. 

This is a non-technical work aimed at the general reader and all those interested in how our world today developed”.

Starting in the Middle Ages the book moves through to the 21st century with the Optic Cloak at the Greenwich Energy Centre on the Peninsula and the innovative South East London Community Energy which “is a non-for-profit social enterprise. Formed by residents of Greenwich and Lewisham who want to play an active role in shaping the energy future of South East London …. taking action to combat climate change through generating renewable energy and tackle fuel poverty”.

It is one of those books which you can walk, with the locations of each site clearly outlined and speculation on those that have long gone as to what they might have looked like.  To this she has added plenty of old and contemporary images of the sites, supported by maps, and is fully referenced.

Amongst the images are the iconic Woolwich Tramshed fondly remembered by generations as the go to place for entertainment and the stunning cover to the story of Deptford Power Station.

And as an Eltham lad I couldn’t miss out our own Gas Works on a corner of Eltham Green and the failed attempt to build an earlier works behind Eltham High Street.

Added to which there is the intriguing suggestion of mills at Mottingham Lane, and at Horn Park Farm and “a mill or a series of mills at Lee in the Kidbrooke Parish area”.

All of which is fascinating and come with heaps of pictures of gasholders which I have to confess are another of those objects that fascinate me but are now very much an endangered “species”.

“Power Generation Sites in Greenwich and Woolwich” is priced at £15 and is available from Amazon and is the sixth publication by the author.**

Location Greenwich & Woolwich

Pictures; cover & illustration of Deptford Power Station from the book,and memories of a different use for the Tramshed, the badge circa 1970s, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Power Generation Sites in Greenwich and Woolwich by Dr MARY, 2026,  2026ISBN 979-81992-4195-3

**Greenwich Peninsula Greenwich Marsh A History of a Heartland, The Greenwich Riverside Upper Watergate to Angerstein, The Industries of Deptford Creek, The Early East London Gas Industry and George Livesey, A Biography

Gasholders I have known and loved ........... no 3 inside the Rochdale Gas works

Now I am well aware this is a cheat ............. less a gasholder and more the inside of the Rochale Road Gas works.

But I have included it the series Gasholders.

The picture is entitled Gas Works Drawing Coke Rochdale Road and dates from 1894.

This was the time when “town gas” was manufactured on site and didn’t come down a pipe from the North Sea or in a container ship from somewhere on the other side of the world.

Back in 1894 Henry Tidmarsh recorded this one along with over 300 other  illustrations for the book Manchester Old and New which  was published in 1894 by Cassell with a text by William Arthur Shaw.

In three big volumes it told the history of the city but the real value of the book was in Tidmarsh's vivid depictions of Manchester, with streets and buildings animated with people.

Pictures; Gas Works Drawing Coke Rochdale Road, 1894, Henry Tidmarsh, from Manchester Old and New, William Arthur Shaw, 1894

*Gasholders,https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Gasholders

Gasholders I have known and loved ........... no 2 Liverpool Street Salford

Now I knew when I launched the new series on Gasholders I was pretty confident it would make a stir.

And sure enough my friend Andy couldn't resist offering up three of his pictures of the gasometer on Liverpool Street.

All of which I am confident is just the start.

Location; Salford



Picture;Liverpool Street, Salford, 2017, from the collection of Andy Robertson


*Gasholders, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Gasholders

Gasholders I have known and loved

Now I grant you they may not seem the most compelling things to write about or indeed to asdmire.

But if you are of a certain age and lived close to a city or town centre they will have been part of the landscape.

I grew up near one and lived close to another when we occupied a flat in east Manchester.

Most of us will have taken them for granted and yet in their way they were a marvel of the 19th century and as much an symbol of that period as the steam engine or the dark satanic mills.

Until recently I have no idea there had been one on King Street West near the House of Fraser although I do have a fine picture of the coking room of the one on Rochdale Road.

Once the manufacture and storage of “town gas” was an essential part of each town and city and were just taken for granted.

So here in a new series are two pictures of the one in east Manchester from the camera of John Casey dating from the 1980s.

Be warned ............ more will follow.

Location; East Manchester

Pictures; the gasholder in east Manchester, 1980s from the collection of John Casey

*Gasholders, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Gasholders

50 ways to use a gasometer …….. no. 32 a block of apartments

I collect gasometers.  

They are a vanishing collector’s dream, and I have to confess I restrict myself to pictures and stories.

Once every self-respecting town would have its own gasworks and the accompanying gasometer to store the manufactured gas.

As a kid I was fascinated by the telescopic ones, which rose and fell with the amount of gas they held, and have always thought the steel and iron lattice frame which contained them were things of beauty.

But then I never lived next to one.

And today few people do, as increasingly they are redundant and are on the danger list.

Many have gone, but occasionally some have benefited from a bit of imagination, like the surviving ones by the Regents Canal.

Now I have to confess that I have never walked the Regents Canal.

When I was growing up in south east London I had little reason to go and visit it, especially as we had our own near by in the form of the Surrey Canal.

And on the rear occasions we made a visit home, Well Hall and the family offered up all we needed for a holiday.

All of which brings me to “50 ways to use a gasometer …….. no. 32 …. a block of apartments", and my friend Bronwen, who alerted me to the fate of those along the canal.

She was reflecting on our conversation about gas holders and commented “I think there are many older buildings now part of tourist attractions but there is something interesting these re old gas ironworks. We were by Regents Canal not so long ago where they have incorporated the ironworks into apartments.  We came across them as  part of my brother in law's London Walks.*

So, there you have it, I can now add the Regents Canal gasometers to my collection, and for anyone who wants to know more about them, just follow the link to an interesting article from the Hackney Gazette, dated 2019.**

Leaving me just to thank Bronwen for sending up the pictures.

Location; Regents Canal

Pictures; Regents Canal, 2020, from the collection of Bronwen Woods

*info@battlefieldjourney.com, https://www.battlefieldjourney.com/london-walks/markets-kites-and-canals/?fbclid=IwAR3_u_bExcRHhiZ_tJqWWgAlTJccgsUhJkSHS0ueNrXFyC8XHdjuIA1kRKc

**“‘Regent’s Canal gasholders should be turned into a museum, not taken apart’ urges East End Waterway Group’s founder Tom Ridge”, Emma Bartholomew, October 15,  2019 Hackney Gazette, https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/heritage/hackney-history-regent-s-canal-gasholders-1-6321714