The last days of the Bethnal Green gasholders

We don’t have cathedrals in east London – gasholders are our urban monuments. Sitting on the Regent’s Canal in clear view of Broadway Market, the Bethnal Green structures stretch their lattice frames and iron columns up against the sky. I’ve walked past them so many times but they’re still always a little bigger than I think. The brown frames reflect on the water of the canal, casting a benign shadow on the ever-changing graffiti on the towpath with its narrowboats, flowers, joggers and dog-walkers. 

After getting married in Hackney Town Hall many years ago, I ran down to that towpath where the sun was setting through the frames – where better to take a wedding photo than in front of the gasholders? These are the symbols of the London that I love, not Big Ben or St Paul’s. My London is full of personal landmarks among its strange and beautiful urban ruins. Even getting divorced a few years later did nothing to dent my affection for those gasholders, and everything they represent.

The Bethnal Green gasholders have been a constant as east London is undergoing rapid change. But in the past few years, a battle has been brewing – will the gasholders be lost? Local campaigners have fought bravely, but the forces of redevelopment have set their sights on Bethnal Green’s beloved landmarks, threatening to change the landscape of east London for good.  

The beautifully defiant 

The gasholders are key to east London’s industrial heritage. The smaller structure, No 2, was built in 1866 and has a cast iron columnal guide frame – it’s the oldest surviving gasholder guide frame in the world. ‘It’s incredible, very handsome with these muscular Tuscan capitals,’ says Mike Althorpe, an urban historian best known as the London Ambler. The larger gasholder, No 5, was built in 1889 and is one of the few remaining examples of a lattice-guide frame. Together, they’re the only gasholders left on the Regent’s Canal which are still in their original positions. ‘They are monuments to Victorian modernity,’ says Althorpe. ‘It’s London as a megalopolis, flexing its muscles.’

But what are they, exactly? A gasholder, sometimes called a gasometer, is a storage facility for gas, used for everything from heating houses to lighting the streets in the pre-electricity era. There’s a chamber underneath, and as the gas fills up you can see the delicate ‘bell’ filling inside the guide frame – when operational, the rising and falling bell meant the gasholders looked different on any given day. ‘The Bethnal Green site was part of the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company,’ Althorpe says. ‘The gas works were at what is now Haggerston Park – that whole site was devoted to the production of gas, which was created by burning coal.’ The gasholders were decommissioned in 2012 so we’re used to seeing them empty, but this was once heavy industry – a far cry from the oat lattes and laptops creative scene that dominates this part of London today.

‘Those gasholders have been part of my experience of [living in] the East End for 13 years,’ says Althorpe. ‘They’re some of the last great monuments to the East End as it was – monuments that powered London's growth.’ Time Out once named the ‘beautifully defiant’ Bethnal Green gasholders among London’s seven alternative wonders. In a time where seemingly every spare patch turns into flats, the gasholders have remained, with no function other than to remind you of where you are and your place in the timeline of the city. 

The redevelopment battle begins

So no one was really surprised when, in 2019, the news came that the gasholders were up for redevelopment. At least one of the gasholders would likely be torn down. More than 8,000 people signed petitions pleading for their preservation, showing just how much love there is for these powerful structures. But still, Tower Hamlets council voted 7-1 in favour of redevelopment, even though the planning application shows 75 people wrote letters in protest, and just four people wrote in support. (Tower Hamlets did not respond to requests for comment.) 

Although the gasholders are part of the local Regent’s Canal Conservation Area, they are privately owned by National Grid and don’t have protection. ‘They’re always going on about placemaking. Well, that’s a place, and it’s unique,’ says Lucinda Rogers, an artist who worked on the petitions with the East End Waterway Group. Rogers has moved out of the area now, finding it ‘too depressing’ after too many lost causes: ‘So much energy goes into these things, and when it fails, what can you do?’ 

The petitions asked for the smaller gasholder to be left empty and become a park, and for the gasholders to be treated in situ. ‘We didn’t want them taken off site and brought back, to basically become decoration,’ says Rogers, citing concerns over authenticity which have been echoed by the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society. ‘I’d be mortified if they were knocked down. I don’t know what other word there might be,’ Tom Ridge, the founder of the East End Waterway Group, said to Hackney Gazette as the campaign to save the gasholders took off in 2019. Ridge has been working to save the structures for almost 20 years: ‘There’s nothing like them anywhere else.’  

Broadway East is coming

In the end, the petitions were ignored. ‘We didn’t really have a hope,’ says Rogers. Construction on the gasholder site started in August 2022. Shiny banners along the canal are now advertising the arrival of Broadway East in 2026, a development by St William, a joint venture between Berkeley Group and National Grid. The good(ish) news? Both gasholders will be preserved. 

But they will look very different: they will have flats inside them. ‘St William are due to refurbish gasholder No 2 off site, and No 5 will be refurbished in situ,’ says a spokesperson for the company. The 4.5 acre site will have 555 flats across five buildings, priced between £660,000 and £1,625,000. Thirty-five percent will be affordable housing – it’s not clear how this is defined, but St William says that 70 percent of the affordable quota will be for social rent. There will also be restaurants, offices, workspaces and other amenities: ‘We believe our plans strike a good balance by preserving the gasholders for future generations, while opening up this canalside site to public use.’ 

Most critics concede that the designs for Broadway East are pretty good. Delicate suspension systems that ‘follow the spirit’ of the gas frames will support steel balconies, and the colours were chosen to reflect the gasholder bell, explains Jack Newton, project lead at the architects behind the plans, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. ‘When the gas tanks were still operational [they were] characterised by a rich range of colours, from oranges, dark reds and browns, and a combination of weathered metal and paint surfaces,’ Newton says. While operational, the gasholders were actually quite the hulking presence: a rusty colour scheme may be historically accurate, but it does chafe against our current day minimalist impressions of empty frames against the sky. 

How to care for your gasholder 

As gas is now stored within the network itself, we don’t need gasholders anymore. But there are hundreds around the country, mostly all decommissioned with their future up for debate. ‘They’re significant, but sometimes you [just] need to sift and decide which are the best, which tell the story of the development and history,’ says Claire Brady, inspector of historic buildings at Historic England. There are currently 11 listed gasholder sites in England, including Fulham, Bromley-by-Bow and King’s Cross, which all will have open frames with parks inside. 

In a letter to Tower Hamlets, Historic England ‘encourage[d] the retention of the gasholder guide frames in situ with belowground elements, such as the tank, where this can be achieved’. It’s always better (and cheaper) to repair on site, as will be the case with No 5 in Bethnal Green: ‘That one is structurally fine, and the main issue is removing the lead paintwork,’ says Brady. ‘Whereas the [smaller] one, that’s cast iron and those are very difficult to repair in situ’, she says, explaining how the cast iron frames at King’s Cross had to be dismantled and scrupulously repaired in a foundry.  

They’re some of the last great monuments to the East End as it was – monuments that powered London's growth

So why aren’t we getting a gasholder park in Bethnal Green? The short answer is that restoring a gasholder costs up to £10 million. ‘By putting a building within the gasholder frame, you secure the money to actually refurbish it,’ says Brady, pointing out that in addition to decontaminating the ground, they need annual inspection and maintenance. Unfortunately, simply leaving them be is not an option: ‘Some gasholders which haven't been repaired are rusting, and starting to come apart,’ says Brady. ‘They have a limited life if left alone.’

Imagining the alternatives 

I’ll admit that my preferred outcome for the gasholders would be for them to somehow stay just as they are: wild and defiant. A lot of people I spoke to simply love seeing the gasholders as they go to work, school, or stumble home from a late night. For most people, gasholders are simply a backdrop to everyday life. 

Many remember becoming curious about gasholders after seeing them from a car or train window as children. Architectural photographer Richard Chivers had his interest piqued young, too. ‘My father used to photograph them. He worked for British Gas, inspecting them and deciding what colour to paint them. He used to come home and show me slides,’ says Chivers, who’s just exhibited his eight year gasholder project at the Gareth Gardner Gallery in Deptford. ‘It’s hard to get a clear view of them unless you get close. But then if you get too close, you're just looking up,’ says Chivers. ‘They’re [surprisingly] difficult to photograph.’ 

Chivers has documented many gasholders being dismantled including the ones at Hornsey, which were deconstructed in 2017. For the Bethnal Green gasholders, the outcome could have been worse: they’re hardly ever preserved unless they’re grade-listed. ‘We’re actually lucky that Tower Hamlets has driven to keep these gasholders,’ says Brady. ‘There’s an economic vibrancy in that part of London that makes it viable.’

But it’s still no question that they’ll now take on a completely different meaning entirely. ‘They’ll be preserved, they’ll be cleaned up, but in that process they’ll become commodified,’ says Althorpe. ‘They’ll be representative of a different way of life. We’ve been fed this idea that development is the only way to run a city… there are alternative ways, and some of these monuments could be given a [different] setting.’ Imagine it: they could become fabulous follies, spectacular adventure parks for climbing and diving, or, as Althorpe suggests, ‘urban landmarks for people just to enjoy and inhabit, without having to spend money’. 

I first saw the Bethnal Green gasholders out on walks when I’d just moved to Hackney, newly single and finding my feet in the city. I’d never seen a gasholder up close before, and I wondered why they rose and fell like that. They don’t move anymore, but their power remains – their size makes them undeniable. Will they still inspire affection for me, once there are flats inside them? I honestly don’t know.  

As the gasholders are refurbished, urban ruin romantics may bemoan the loss of awe as much as anything else. Even if they become parks, they still lose that rebellious streak of squatting on valuable real estate. Maybe that’s what I’ll miss most of all: that feeling of space to spare in the city, with plenty of time to dream of what could be.