Culzean
Castle Small Gas Making Plant |
During the 1800's the use of towns gas for
lighting was becoming very popular and the aristocracy
and landed gentry were keen to ensure that this new
method of lighting was used in their own stately homes.
Many stately mansions that were refurbished and
modernised during Victorian times had their own small
gas making plant built on the property. The Heritage Group has for some time been trying to find a Stately Home in the UK which had managed to retain its original gas making and gas storing plant and equipment. Sadly our research has shown that most of the properties which once had their own gas making plant are now left with just the remains of the buildings, in varying states of dilapidation. The plant and equipment having been completely removed. |
However, all was not lost. One stately home in
Ayrshire, Culzean Castle now owned by the National Trust
for Scotland who have completely restored the original
buildings of the small gas making plant, which had
slowly become derilict over the past 50 years. The gas making plant was still in use up until the 1940's. The Castle was then connected to the local electricity supply network and the gas supply was then no longer needed and used. The two buildings at beach level have been restored and now become a small exhibition centre intending to educate and show people what this now defunct form of gas production was all about. The Gas Managers House has been converted into a Museum which through a series of information boards tells the story about the life and achievements of William Murdoch 1754 -1839 who is generally regarded as the "Father of Gas Lighting". |
View thro' trees of Gas Managers House Museum |
View thro' trees of the Retort House |
This artist's impression on an information board shows how the gas works would have looked in the 1880's with a small boat offloading the coal into a waiting horse and cart. The coal was then taken up the beach into the yard to be stored until used. The Retort House (with the chimney) needed to be worked 24 hours every day to maintain a sufficient quantity of gas to fill the gas holder and also supply the needs of the Castle. The Gas Managers House was the building where the people lived who worked in the retort house. |
A
full size realistic model has been constructed to
show what the working layout would have been like
inside the Retort House.
The
actual conditions for the workers with the intense
heat, smell, and dirt when feeding the retorts with
coal can only be imagined and therefore never fully
appreciated.
|
A
diagrammatic colour layout showing the creation of
town gas from coal. Each stage in the manufacturing
process is identified before the gas can be stored and
prepared ready to be fed up pipes for use in the
Castle.
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Early gas works were built for lighting individual buildings, rather than for general supply. The idea of commercial production came from a German, Frederick Albrecht Winzer, and both Glasgow and Edinburgh had established undertakings by 1819, Edinburgh's Princes Street was lit by gas in 1822 a year before New York. Gas works were
usually sited near a railway station from where the
coal was transported by horse and cart and later by
lorry. Each gas works had its retort house, chimney
and gas holder, and the foreman always lived nearby.
Original retorts were made of cast iron, but this
was superseded by moulded fireclay and finally by
silica.
In larger gas works the extraction of by-products became economic, for example ammonia sulphate was used as an agricultural fertilizer and benzole was a petrol substitute. The number of gas works
in Scotland grew, reaching a peak in the 1840's;
several however, closed in between the two World Wars.
The 1948 Gas Act set up twelve Area boards (including
the Scottish Gas Board) and by that time there
were 195 works producing town gas in Scotland,
from Lerwick in the North to Kirkcudbright in the
South.
Biggar Gas Works has been preserved and is open to visitors by the National Museums of Scotland. |
All
that remains of the gas holder is the pit.
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To recognise the achievement of the refurbishment of these buildings, this restoration project was awarded the Europa Nostra Award in 1992. |