The Tall Tale of the Worcester Sauce Factory - Lost Buildings 2

Old factory viewed from roof of new shopping

building, Worcester 1991

In 1991 I photographed a red brick, industrial building in the centre of Worcester. It was an obsolete and unwanted Victorian factory which, although it added character and historical context to the area, was about to be demolished to make way for the new Crowngate Shopping Centre.  Victorian industrial buildings would not become really fashionable for renovation or conversion into desirable ‘loft’ homes for a few more years.

Practical obsolescence, changing fashion and new commercial necessity have always been the enemies of previously built structures, often leading to their destruction. This will inevitably continue to be true, like the case of this Worcester factory. The alternative would be to mothball old buildings once they become obsolete, just in case, and only build on unoccupied land.

The obvious impracticality of this approach makes it inevitable that particularly in Britain, with our shortage of building land, we will demolish structures which some people actually like, in order to create new ones. In fact within weeks of their demolition most buildings aren't missed by anyone. A few obsolete buildings can be rescued by enthusiastic individuals with access to money or by TV shows like the BBC’s ‘Restoring England’s Heritage,’ but many more are lost and most of those are almost immediately forgotten.  Some don't matter, others may have fascinating stories attached.

Timber trusses stacked for re-use elsewhere.

In Worcester the shopping centre was already under construction and I was there to document progress in the creation of that new retail hub for the citizens of Worcester, but as I stood the new centre's roof, I took a photograph of the doomed factory. I then went down to ground level and was able to get inside. I managed to take a few shots of the building as the salvage firm moved in. The place was not just bulldozed, bits and pieces were saved for re-use including many of the beautiful red bricks, the chimney pots, lintels, stonework and timber trusses.     
      

Rear entrance originally for horse and cart

At the time, the story told was that this factory was the original building where in the 1830’s two chemists, Messrs John Wheeler Lea and William Perrin, accidentally created their world famous Worcestershire Sauce. It was concocted as an interpretation of a recipe imported from India by Lord Marcus Sandys, who had been serving as an officer in the East India Company - or according to another version of the tale he was Governor of Bengal. He commissioned Lea and Perrins to re-create his favourite Bengal fish sauce. However there seems to be little or no evidence that any Lord Marcus Sandys ever set foot in India.

Yet a third version of the tale credits Lady Sandys with asking the chemists to make a curry sauce from a recipe provided by her friend Mrs Grey, whose uncle was Chief Justice of India. The plot thickens and so did the recipe. Apparently the first batch tasted terrible, Lea and Perrins commented that it was 'unpalatable, red hot fire water.' They had made several barrels of this foul brew, which were hidden in the cellar and forgotten. Several years later the barrels were re-discovered during a stock take and the contents had fermented to become the famous, flavoursome sauce. It was first marketed in 1837 and gained rapid popularity as a table condiment including on passenger ships via which it spread to the USA.

Lea and Perrins factory on Midland Road

Later research tells me that Worcester Sauce was created not in a factory but in a chemist's shop on Worcester's Broad Street.  The sauce has been manufactured since the 1890's in a building on Midland Road, Worcester, which is about a mile from the town centre and more convenient for distribution as it's near the railway. So some time between the Broad Street Pharmacy and the Midland Road Factory, could there have been another production site? After all, it seems a tall order to produce a popular bottled sauce in sufficient quantities to supply an international market in a small shop on a city street.

The mythology/history around the origins of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce make for a great story, but if the sauce was really made in the shop for much of the nineteenth century, then what was that old factory building which I was able to photograph just before it vanished? I found no other clues and if that red brick building, with its distinctive chimney and gables wasn’t the sauce factory, it is well and truly lost and forgotten. 

 

The Full Gasometer

Here's the complete text of my article on Gasometers

Gasometer; The Rise and Fall of an Industrial Icon.

Is there a gasometer near you? If there is, take a few photographs for posterity because this iconic part of our industrial heritage won't be around for much longer. They were ubiquitous up until the 1960’s; nearly every UK town had its own gasworks, providing reassuring views of the accompanying gasometer as it rose and fell almost mysteriously in the middle distance. We were all very used to them, so their slow demise has hardly registered. Most stopped rising and falling from the introduction of North Sea Gas onward and today, gas arrives from elsewhere, coming ashore from the North Sea or across from Europe to arrive at one of seven UK processing terminals such as the one at Bacton in Norfolk. A few gasometers still rise and fall, but now they are simply used for temporarily balancing the system, not for providing the local gas supply.

This rather elegant lattice structure is part of Huddersfield's column-guided gasometer (or gas-holder), a familiar sight near the town centre just off the Leeds Road. Any fan who has ever ever attended a match starring either the Huddersfield Giants or Huddersfield Town F.C. and tried to locate the John Smith (formerly the Galpharm) Stadium will have either used the gasometer as a landmark to find their way, or parked in its shadow.

Strictly speaking this is the structure which supports the telescopic gas holder as it rises and falls according to how much gas is inside, sealed in by the water reservoir underneath. This column- guided, telescoping gasometer design was invented in 1824 to conveniently contain ‘town gas’ which was produced using coal. However well before this, a coal ‘gasification’ process was creating gas in useful quantities, which was kept in rigid containers and used for lighting in factories and workshops. These coal gases were far from pure, consisting of numerous substances including methane, carbon monoxide and sulphur, they went through purification processes to be reliably and safely useful.

Things Look Better in Black and White; Picture of the Week 24 May 2016

To accompany my new header photograph, here's a close up of the same scene.

I often prefer black and white photographic images to coloured ones. When were these buildings photographed? When were they built? The black and white makes them seem very old, until you notice the windows above the garage door, and in the dormer, top left. Looking at the header picture, un-cropped, tells you more. But can you pin it down?

Ok this was a backstreet in Brighton, just off the Old Steine, in 1971. Photograph taken from the third floor of Brighton College of Art, I printed the original in college, negative is long since lost.

When is Art Deco not Art Deco?

The Modernist Brotherton Wing of Leeds
Infirmary. The curved balcony was
 functional, to allow patients to take in
sun and air

Some claim Art Deco originates in the 1925 French art expo at Le Musee des Arts Decoratifs. The exposition was intended as a display of new design from around the world, although the Americans didn’t participate. However Art Deco style works can be seen in Europe 10 and even 15 years prior to the expo.

The answer to the title question is probably when it’s Modernism, which is quite often. According to the V & A (who should know) the actual term ‘Art Deco’ wasn’t invented until the 1960’s, so to describe buildings from 50 years earlier as Art Deco does seems curious, but that's what art historians do. 

Perhaps the clue to identifying Art Deco lies in the word Deco. It implies decoration rather than function, which was the guiding thought in Modernism. From restrained lines to sunbursts and elaborate Egyptian styling, Deco is frequently applied to the surface of a building rather than incorporated into the basic structure.

The Hepworth, Wakefield - a Runaway Success in just 4 Years, Picture of the Week, 13.7.15

The award winning Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield opened in May 2011. As well as highlighting a collection of wonderful work by Yorkshire sculptor Barbara Hepworth, it took over the collection formerly housed in the Wakefield City Art Gallery.

The award winning building is beautifully situated on a weir on the River Calder.

Despite opening before the recession ended, visitor numbers have exceeded all expectations. The original modest hope was for up to 150,000 visitors per year, this number was achieved in the first eight weeks after opening. Even though numbers reduced slightly after the initial enthusiasm, the Hepworth greeted their one millionth visitor, a delighted Australian woman, after just two and a half years, in December 2013.

I make no apology for plugging this lovely gallery. There is no comparable place named after a woman artist that I know of and anyone who is interested in modern art or architecture shouldn't miss it. Visitors from further afield could even make an art holiday out of their visit. The Hepworth's proximity to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park has led to the formation of the Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle, helping the Hepworth's popularity. The third point in the triangle is Leeds Art Gallery and its conjoined twin the Henry Moor Institute. Four fantastic galleries and, apart from special exhibitions, entry for everyone is free!

*
 
http://www.ysculpture.co.uk/

http://ripassetseu.s3.amazonaws.com/www.hepworthwakefield.org/_files/documents/dec_13/FENT__1386266814_Press_Release_-_5_Dec_-_The_He.pdf

The Gasometer - a Vanishing Sight. Picture of the week 3 July 2015

Is there a gasometer near you? If there is, take a photograph for posterity because this iconic part of our industrial heritage won't be around for much longer.

This rather elegant lattice structure is part of Huddersfield's gasometer (or gas-holder), a familiar sight near the town centre, just off the Leeds Road. Any fan who has ever watched a match starring either the Huddersfield Giants or Huddersfield Town FC and tried to park near the John Smith (formerly Galpharm) Stadium will have passed it or parked in its shadow.

Strictly speaking this is the structure which supports the actual telescopic gas holder as it rises and falls according to how much gas is inside, sealed in by the reservoir underneath. The telescoping gasometer was invented as early as 1824, in Wolverhampton. In Huddersfield the actual gas holder never rises these days, the curve of its top is just visible above the roofs of the factory sheds in the photo below. The structure is obsolete, surplus to the requirements of modern technology which the grid uses today to distribute gas by less impressive methods.

 All over the country, gasometers are being demolished, reduced to scrap metal. It can only be a matter of time before the same fate falls to this one.

The former Huddersfield Gas Works site (dating back to the 1820's) covered an area of 3.2ha and originally by 1837 had three gasometers. Over the years gasometers have come, gone and been re-built on the site. This last remaining one was built in 1916, it is 127 feet high and 220ft in diameter and the actual gas holder (the 'bell') has 3 telescoping sections which rise as the internal gas pressure increases. The gas works itself was decommissioned in 1972, when National Grid started distributing natural gas from the North Sea.

The Huddersfield Gasometer has been immortalised by local artist David Blackburn, whose 1981 pastel painting Industrial Landscape with Gasometer is in the V & A Museum in London.

Sarah O'Carroll @GasometerGal is trying to record as many gasometers as possible, before they all bite the dust.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30405066

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/gas-holder-huddersfield-a-february-2012.t68912

http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/articles/Gas/Production.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/10473071/Gasometers-a-brief-history.html

Lost Buildings 1 - Alexandria and Berlin

Fall of the Berlin Wall 1989
(photo from thecommune.co.uk)

All around the world, buildings vanish every day, as do other manmade structures. Some losses are notable. Nobody is likely to mourn the loss of the Berlin Wall, which for 28 years divided not just the city of Berlin but the surrounding countryside for 100 miles, before inexorable political change led to it being torn down in 1989.

On the other hand, the Ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt was deliberately burned down by Christian fanatics in 391 AD after Emperor Theodosius outlawed 'paganism'. This barbaric act lead to the loss of a thousand years of learning.  It was only with the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone and its eventual translation, 22 years later, that the way to read the hieroglyphic writing of the Ancient Egyptians was re-learned.




The new Bibliotheca Alexandrina 2006 (my Photo)

I saw the Berlin wall as a teenager and happily re-visited, with my own children in July 1990, to observe its demise. There was some left then and I have a piece which I picked up from beside the Brandenberg Gate. And as if to celebrate a brave new world, in Egypt the Library of Alexandria, lost almost 1700 years ago, was finally replaced by a superb new library, designed in 1989 by Norwegian architects from the Olso and New York Snǿhetta practice.

Bibliotheca Alexandrina Interior 2006 (my Photo)

This modern building, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which I was lucky enough to visit in 2006, is a beautiful low pyramid of glass and steel housing a multilingual library. It seemed popular and well used when I visited, I sincerely hope that Egypt's current political, religious and social disruption doesn't damage this beautiful and essential  repository of learning.  The Egyptian people deserve to live with education and erudition freely available and if it can remain associated with great architecture, so much the better.

Between the world famous extremes of the Berlin Wall and the Great Library of Alexandria, many smaller, less significant structures also fall, sometimes almost unnoticed and their loss is often nothing to do with either religion or politics. I'll talk about some of them in a week or two.

Office Space Available, my 100th Picture of the Week, 18 December 2013

There's a lot of it about. This particular site/sight is in Dublin, but it doesn't have to be...