Picture of the Week; Leeds first Gasometer

While researching for an extended article on gasometers for publication in QS Eye magazine, I came across this very early photo of an even earlier gasometer.

This stood beside the gasworks at Bean Ings Mills in Leeds and was probably built before 1800. Do you know of an earlier gasometer anywhere?

Bean Ings wool mill, owned by Benjamin Gott was one of the town’s biggest employers from 1790, with over 2000 workers. Gott engaged steam engineers Boulton and Watt to provide a steam engine for this woolen mill when earlier, water-powered mechanisms, which relied on water from the nearby canal, proved unreliable. Bean Ings Mill also acquired its own gasworks (one of the first ever built), complete with a rigid gasometer, so that Gott’s weavers could work by gaslight late into the night.

The exact date of this gasometer’s installation at Gott’s mill is unclear, but some years later, in 1800, much of the mill burnt down and Gott moved the enterprise to Armley. The gasometer must have lasted longer than that, for the photograph to have been taken as photography wasn't around at the time.

Today the site of the mill is home to the Yorkshire Post building at the end of Wellington Street.

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Photo found at :- http://www.leodis.net/discovery/discovery.asp?page=2003219_348858059&topic=200335_73055447&subsection=2003724_663265408&subsubsection=2003911_593959988