I'm always a bit wary of local claims of the "smallest x" etc. For example, this page claims that Chew Magna in Somerset once had the smallest gasworks. Presumably both claims refer to public supplies for there were many smaller gasworks at industrial sites and large country houses.

Nick

Thanks, Nick, for the very useful link.  (One typo at the beginning - Murdock should be Murdoch!)

I remember, as a young lad, being taken on a school trip to Oswestry Gas Works, a much larger plant than Shipston's was.  It was very impressive though incomprehensible at the time - how can a plant with furnaces produce a combustible gas without it burning?  Well, the answer is clear to me now.

I looked at Shipston as a potential BLT back in about 2006 but was disappointed with the lack of a rail connection to the gas works to add interest to the goods traffic.

I did not search too deeply for details of the gas works at Shipston, but found your research results interesting. I did work, in my youth, for the B'ham Gas company at their Gas Street Offices.

My interest in the modelling the branch finally waned when BRM produced a (printed) Special Supplement showing a layout at a higher quality than I thought I could manage! (July 2007 issue - "Layout of a Lifetime' Morton in Marsh and Shipston on Stour branch") 

If you have not seen the BRM Supplement drop me a PM and I'll send it to you.

Thanks for that amazing link regarding the gasworks!  As I think I probably mentioned to you some time back, we lived in the end of terrace house in Station Road, dead opposite the gasworks, from about 1962 to 1966

I can still remember some sort of TV filming going on before it closed (I would have been about six at the time).  Some years back, during my own researches into Shipston, I managed to contact the BBC archive and was able to get (at an obscene cost, mind) a VHS copy of a short (7mins and 4secs), B/W clip from the 'Tonight' programme of the time, where reporter Julian Pettifer covered Shipston's gaswoks closure and interviewed Dick Darnley.  The film starts in the (by now closed) station yard, panning round to show the gasworks, before going into the works themselves.

As a boy, I can remember Mr Darnley (I never called him Dick of course) coming into our kitchen to empty the meter and count out the coins on the counter top.  Sadly, I was also witness to the gasworks' demolition, shame it could not have been retained as a museum, a bit like that at Fakenham.
 

As for Shipston's size, I thought I'd found out that Shipston Gasworks was the second smallest in the country, but I could not tell you which was the smallest.  The Stratford Herald (20 Dec 1963) stated it was '...believed to be the smallest in England', whilst the West Midlands Gas Board newsletter ('Boost') of the time, said it was the smallest station in that (West Midlands Gas Board) region.

BTW, in that second, much shorter clip, the man in the white coat shown raking the coke out of a retort (not coal -  coal goes into the retort, gasifies, leaving coke behind to be quenched and sold-on), is actually the (un-named) chairman of the West Midlands Gas Board (Dick Darnley is the one in the trilby BTW), so I guess that short film (including the 'turning off a tap' -  actually, it looks like he's opening it) is meant to signify the last day of the gasworks and the changeover to the 'High Speed Gas' main.

You can look up how coal gas is produced, but it is the same principle as the 'gas-producer firebox', tried on many steam locomotives.  Burning is only partial, because it takes place in the absence of sufficient air for complete combustion (hence why Mr Darnley used a lighted paper taper, near the retort charging door when opening it, to ensure any lingering gas was ignited safely, rather than initiating a 'Back Draught' moment!).  The chemical reaction liberates the gas which is free to be harvested and then burnt much more cleanly and efficiently later.  There are waste products of course, which still have to be dealt with, but at least they did not go straight up the chimney.

HTH and I'll detail Shipston's layout in another, separate, post

Thanks, Steve, for the details that add a lot to the two films.  I think an add on module containing the gasworks is becoming more of a reality.

DonB above mentions that there was no direct connection from coal siding to gas works.  If this was the case, then where did the coal come from?  In the end days, by road I suppose.

Shipston Gasworks layout;
 

As a one/two-man operation, Shipston gasworks did not have all the facilities of an urban or city works.  Though the basic principles were the same, many of the chemical by-products (e.g. Coal Tar, Sulphur, etc.) recovered in bigger works, were not harvested at Shipston and simply went as waste (either out of the yard or up the chimney).

Coal arrived in wagons (i.e. from Exhall Colliery) in the siding alongside the gasworks.  There was no rail entry (why -  maybe there was a cost involved, payable to the railway, in having such a facility that, historically, no one wanted to pay?).  Anyway, a local history society member told me that the coal was unloaded from the wagon(s) by hand and shovelled (by hand) over the wall into the works -  talk about labour-intensive!  Coke was available for sale in the gasworks yard, but I do not know if coal was -  might have upset the coal merchant (Hutchins & Son), who had a business in the station yard of course.

Looking into the works from Station Road, the gasworks 'house' where Mr & Mrs Darnley lived (with their son Peter, if memory serves), was on the right (and is still there), whilst the retort house was the first, large, building on the left.  The retort house appears to have been rebuilt at least once and there were two distinctly different makes of retort 'stacks' inside -  those nearest the road were made by Clapham Brothers of Keighly, Yorkshire.  In the far end, there appears to be some sort of pressure regulating room, possibly also containing the donkey/oil engine(?), which drove the gas compressor to force the gas through the rest of the system.  Somewhere, the gas also had to pass through a condenser of some sort, but I've not been able to identify exactly where that was (see later).  Actually, thinking about it, the compressor would probably have been after the condensing phase.
 

Anyway, continuing down the left-hand side of the works, you passed a walled pit, in which were two gas purifier boxes.  These contained iron oxide, used to remove the 'rotten egg' smell (hydrogen sulphide?) and their contents were emptied out into the walled pit.  Beyond the purifier 'pit', on the left, is the meter house (the one with the, permanently lit, gas lamp over the door).  Beyond the meter house is another, quite tall building.  My guess, is that this is the condenser house (given its height), though usually, such equipment would have been positioned outdoors to allow for natural cooling, so the jury is still out on that one.

Eventually, you reach the gas holders themselves.  As far as I know, the nearer (but squatter) one is the original holder, whilst the smaller, but taller one, is the later additional capacity.  Consumer (mains gas) pressure was (partially?) maintained by the manual placing (or removing) of many concrete blocks on the top of the gas holder 'bells' (hence Mr Darnley's trips up the holder ladders)!
 

There are other small buildings in the yard, but apart from the works office beyond the gasworks house, I do not know what their function was (toilets, washroom?).

HTH as well -  if anyone has any more detailed information or photos, I'd be very interested to hear.
 

Steve N

Addendum;
 

Although Shipston station itself closed in May 1960 (and track lifting commenced in 1961), Mr Compton (the then, coal merchant) continued to operate his business in the corner of the yard adjacent to the gasworks house.  Indeed, he eventually purchased that end of the yard by the roadside and had his own bungalow built.  Sadly, Mr Compton is no longer with us, but the bungalow still exists, as does the old weighbridge office which he retained for his business (albeit with a washroom structure tacked onto the back).  In fact, the weighbridge office, is now the only extant structure remaining on 'site', everything else has been swept away by housing.
 

So, up until 1960, coal could still have arrived for the gasworks by rail and (as you suggest) must have then come by road, from that date, until the gasworks closed in December 1963.  Whether that road delivery was directly through the front gate, or still heaved over the wall, I do not know (or remember) -  hopefully, the former!

Steve N

Thank you Steve

Now it is winter and the leaves are off the trees I plan to do a survey of the line at each road junction.  The housing estate where the station was will not reveal many secrets but I now know to look out for the weighbridge office and the gasworks house.  Still shots from the movie should help me identify the latter.

I do know there is a GWR cast iron sign on one of the houses where the station used to be.  I'll photograph that at the same time, though it quite possibly has a very different origin.

A restless night saw me delving further into the gas works research. Google and Apple Maps both show quite clearly the original gas works perimeter.  The house is also visible on Street View, as is the original entrance.  Inside the yard some buildings remain standing, but the retort house and the two gas holders are no more.  The house appears to be in good condition.

Next door the bungalow with the weighbridge is also present.  I have taken a number of screen grabs, all of which add to the database.

Those two MACE videos have opened the door!

Does not add any more to the Shipston "story" , but during my short employment at WMGB the chairman was Mr. G. LeB. Diamond, who also had a directorship (possibly Chairman) of a company manufacturing Crematoria.! He would expound on the theory of effective Cremation at the drop of a hat! ..(Really useful knowledge for a 20-something year-old !)

I doubt that he was the "man in the white coat" mentioned by Steve, In my meetings with him -- he didn't strike me as a "Hands-on" type at all!

Hi DonB,
 

I would guess that the 'chairman' in the shorter video, is equally not a 'hands-on' type.  From the article and photo in the 'Boost' magazine (Feb 1964), he looks like 'management'.  From his slick (brylcreem) hair, shirt and tie and the suspiciously new-looking white lab coat and insulated gloves he is wearing, I would guess this is a staged photo opportunity he could not miss.  In fact, given the date of the video, I would not be surprised if the gasworks was no longer actually working at that point and that Mr Darnley had arranged for a small coal fire to have been lit in the retort concerned, in order to allow the chairman to '...rake out the coke for the last time', for the cameras.
 

Interesting stuff nevertheless.

Compton Smokeless Fuels traded from the Old Station Yard until certainly the early years of this century.

From 1960 to 1963 Shipston Gas Works - like Moreton Gas works was supplied by E L Horne the Coal Merchant at Moreton-in-Marsh.