NHER 62805 (Monument record) - Site of King's Lynn Gas Works

This is the site of King's Lynn Gas Works. In 1825 the Corporation granted a 99-year lease to the Paving Commissioners of part of the northern field of what was then known as the Stray Pasture, outside the South Gates. The site was sub-let to John Malam, a civil engineer from Rochdale, who had taken out various gas patents in 1823 and who was engaged to build 'a manufactory of gas' for street lighting and other purposes. The cost of the works was £14,000 and included seven miles of pipes. The business was taken over in 1842 by John Malam's son of the same name, but there were complaints about the quality and cost of the supply, as a result of which a group of Lynn men formed the King's Lynn Gas Company and compulsorily purchased the manufactory from Malam and the site from the Corporation.
The original Gas Works site and buildings are shown on (S1) and (S2). At the centre of the site is a T-shaped building, with, to the north, roadside ranges flanking a central entrance, and to the south two circular structures. The entrance to the Gas Works was via a broad arched gateway flanked by two Doric pilasters each side supporting an entablature above which was an attic with an urn at each end and a tablet with the words 'GAS WORKS' in raised letters. Above it was a drum with tall, narrow windows between Doric pilasters and a shallow dome on top. No architect is recorded, and (S3) asserts that it is most likely that it was designed by John Malam himself. A description of the site in 1845 records that there were two gasometers, each capable of holding 16,000 cubic feet of gas. In the mid-1850s areas to the east, west and south were added to the lease, and the western wing (the coke shed) was extended westwards, with a new purifying house to their south. By the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed in 1884) there had been radical changes, with the addition of a roadside range of offices and a retort house behind, linked by a coal store to the east. Fronting onto Wisbech Road was a house called The Gas Works Lodge, which was occupied by the foreman of the works from at least 1841 to 1911, and a new main entrance appears to have been built immediately to the east of this. In 1897 a new purifying house was proposed on the riverbank, along with a third gasometer. By 1928 a large building with a shallow-pitched roof was erected in the north-east corner of the site, providing a smithy, a fitter's shop, and engineers' stores.
Further changes to the site in the 20th century resulted in the demolition of the domed gateway some time before the 1950s. The gas company was nationalised in 1949. The works closed in the early 1960s and many of the buildings were demolished in 1964. The two remaining gasometers were taken down in 1988 and the site is now vacant.
See (S3) and (S4) for further information.
A. Cattermole (King's Lynn UAD), 1 May 2019.