Gasworks

Country house gas works are extant at Culzean Castle in Scotland and Owlpen in Gloucestershire.

Occasionally the condenser pipes were contained in a water tank similar to a boiler but operated in the same manner as the air-cooled variant.

Also known as an Iron Sponge, this removed hydrogen sulfide from the gas by passing it over wooden trays containing moist ferric oxide.

Waste from this process often gave rise to blue billy, a ferrocyanide contaminant in the land which causes problems when trying to redevelop an old gasworks site.

Often only used at large gasworks sites, a benzole plant consisted of a series of vertical tanks containing petroleum oil through which the gas was bubbled.

Photos of Fakenham Gas Works Gasworks were noted for their foul smell and generally located in the poorest metropolitan areas.

in south west England are known as ‘Gas-Heads’ due to the proximity of gasometers near to their original ground at Eastville in Bristol.

Such works were established at the Macdonaldtown Carriage Sheds, Newcastle, Bathurst, Junee and Werris Creek.

With the spreading conversion to electric power for lighting buildings and carriages during the 1920s and 1930s, the railway gasworks were progressively decommissioned.

In March 1866, the Queensland Defence Force placed an official request for town gas connection, evidence of the vital role the gasworks played in the economic development of colonial Brisbane.

During its golden years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the site also played a vital role in providing employment to aboriginal Australians and many migrant workers arriving there from Europe after the second World War.

It is located in the industrial area of the IREN Archived 14 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine company, an Italian multi-utility, where coal gas has been produced till 1972.

The small Museum, managed by Fondazione AMGA, hosts a rich collection of industrial finds, related to water and gas works history.