Monument record 2578/3/1 - Stewart Street Gasholder Station, Crewe

<1> The Environment Partnership (TEP), 2021, Stewart Street Gasholder Station, Crewe, Cheshire, Historic Building Recording (Client Report). SCH8974.

In 1864, with the establishment of a new steel works in the Crewe and developments at the western side of the town a new gasworks was built at Wistaston Road and extended in 1882-1886.

It is known that Gasholder 1 was built in 1924 and it first appears on the 1938 Ordnance Survey map. The workers houses to the south of the gasworks had by this date been demolished and new buildings erected in their place. By 1960 the smaller of the three gasholders / tanks in the main works site had been demolished and the plant buildings had been changed, with a new substantial retort house occupying the north part of the site.

By the 1970s the main part of the gasworks had been demolished and replaced with a Depot; the eastern gasholder remained extant but the western gasholder had been demolished. This gasholder remained standing until the 1990s.

Recording of a redundant gasholder at the Stewart Street Gasholder Station, Crewe, ahead of and during its demolition. The surveyed gasholder was built in 1924 and was a fairly typical example of the spirally-guided gasholder design which had reached a relatively standardised form by this period and was continued into the 1960s at which time the manufacture of new gasholders had largely ceased. The gasholder demonstrated typical features of above-ground gasholders including the use external pilasters joined to vertical stiffeners on the inside face of the tank to support the outermost roller carriages and walkway. Report contains photographic survey of the site.


The surveyed gasholder was built in 1924 and was a fairly typical example of the spirally-guided gasholder design which had reached a relatively standardised form by this period and was continued into the 1960s at which time the manufacture of new gasholders had largely ceased. This was the last gasholder to be constructed at the former gasworks and with a capacity of 1 million cubic feet was clearly intended to significantly increase the site's storage and distribution capability. Historic maps
and photographs of the main area of the gasworks show that the site already two spirally-guided gasholders, these possibly dating to the 1890s and therefore being very early examples of the type.

The site is unusual due to its adaptation to the site topography which required the gasholder to be partly buried within artificial embankments so that only at its southwestern side was the full height of the gasholder to be seen.

The gasholder demonstrated typical features of above-ground gasholders including the use external pilasters joined to vertical stiffeners on the inside face of the tank to upport the outermost roller carriages and walkway. The tank walkway access was placed at the north side of the gasholder where the dry well / valve pit was also located, this being the highest level of the embankments. The gasholder crown was trussed and supported on a central post when at rest; these are typical features of spiral gasholders and continued to be utilised in gasholders into the 1960s.

Following the national conversion to natural gas in the 1960s and 1970s, gasworks across Britain saw large-scale clearance of former plant and buildings and the remaining gasholders were fitted with new equipment to allow them to be remotely monitored, as well as the replacement of former steam anti-freeze systems to remotely monitored electrical anti-freeze pumps as can be demonstrated at this site