2-982-577 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Large Gasholder at the Imperial Gas Company's Works, Bethnal-Green, 1858. '...the dimensions of gasholders have increased from a capacity of 40,000 cubic feet to 2,500,000 cubic feet...The work is constructed from [the] designs...of Mr. Joseph Clark, the company's engineer...The tank is of brick and stone work, measuring 204 feet in diameter, and 41½ feet deep...In the construction of the tank and piers 2,000,000 bricks and 5000 cubic feet of stone were employed...This work, allowed to be the best specimen of hydraulic brickwork of the present day, was executed by Mr. John Aird, Emerson-street, Southwark...The gasholder is of the telescope kind, and consists of two cylinders, so contrived, that one slides within the other...The guide-frame consists of forty-eight columns, and the same number of girders in two tiers, the lower tier being of the Tuscan order...and the upper tier of columns and girders of the Corinthian order. The ironwork was furnished and erected by Messrs. Westwood and Wrights...the castings being made by Mr. Richard Burrows, of Stavely Ironworks, under the special superintendance of the manager, Mr. Gibson. The entire amount of iron employed in the whole structure when complete will approach 1500 tons'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.