FAKENHAM GAS WORKS

Fakenham Gas Works

Fakenham Gas Works

The Fakenham Gas Works was opened in 1846, enlarged in 1856 and further enlarged and modified in the late 19th century (19thC) and during the 20thC. A local partnership operated the works until the Fakenham Gas & Coke Company Ltd was formed in 1909. This company was in turn bought by the Worthington Church Organisation in 1920 and became part of the Eastern Gas Board in the nationalised industry in 1949. The works was supplying 500 customers when production ceased in September 1965. The site was scheduled in 1984 and is the only complete extant town gasworks in England. It is occupied by the Fakenham Town Gasworks Museum Trust who open it to the public on occasional days or by arrangement. The remains consist of a series of brick buildings of mainly mid-19th century date together with extensive plant of mainly early 20th century date.

Contamination Issues

Contamination surveys were undertaken in 1992, 1998 and 2001 as part of the ongoing responsibility of the landowners for a scheduled site that is open to the public. Decisions over remediation proposals arising from the investigations have been and continue to be made following consultation with the Environment Agency, English Heritage (for scheduled monument consent) and the local authority. Investigations in part targeted specific historic structures identified by research. Both near-surface contamination and groundwater contamination were examined.

Two particular hazards were identified on the museum site. A heap of 'blue billy' (spent cyanide oxide) was identified as a health and safety hazard and was isolated and removed from the site. The still in-situ content of the tar tank was also identified as a potential hazard (for its potential to leak out into the groundwater) and there is currently a proposal to drain the tank (leaving the structure in place) subject to scheduled monument consent. Finally, given that the local water table is quite high, monitoring of the site drainage system has indicated that occasional cleaning out of sumps may be appropriate. Although other contaminants have been identified around the site, it is felt that they do not pose a sufficient risk in relation to the current use of the site to require further remediation measures.

Figure: Fakenham Gas Works

Prior to the development of natural gas supplies in the late 1960's and early 1970's gas was made from coal in a local gas works. The town gas works is a popular adjunct to model railways set in any period up to the 1970's, they were built in sizes to suit almost any size of layout and generated an interesting and regular traffic for the line. In the 1930s there were over a thousand gas works in the country, this figure had fallen slightly by the time they were nationalised in 1949 but then dropped dramatically with only about 500 still in operation by the later 1950s (Fuchs, 1998, pp. 297).

Originally they used coal to make the gas, but in the later 1950s and through the 1960s the cheap ...