Yeading Brook Southall Gas Works

Yeading Brook
The brook flows south west

Post to the north Hayes Gate
Post to the west Bulls Bridge

Brent Road
Trading and industrial area at the north end and west side
Beaver Industrial Estate, includes wind turbines
Kearley and Tonge Jam factory. Opened in 1913. The firm had begun as a Brentford grocery store in the 1870s and expanded to become a large supermarket chain, International Stores.  They had numerous manufacturing outlets with jam being made originally in Whitechapel. They had a dock on the Canal near the firm with boats servicing the factory for goods transport. The factory closed in 1970 and International Stores itself was taken over in 1972 by British American Tobacco and store names changed to Somerfield.
Bestway Cash and Carry. These buildings were the Kearley and Tonge biscuit works.
Ticklers Jam Factory. This may have preceded the Kearley and Tonge jam factory. They supplied the British Army during the First World War.
Arrow Electric Switches. New offices and works covering five acres opened in 1961. The company's original buildings were at Hangar Lane.  They eventually moved to Plymouth.
Tunnel from the north end of the road into the gas works site. This goes under the railway and was used as a back entrance ot the gas works.

Emerald Square
Western Road Stadium.  This is housing on the site of Western Road Stadium and home of Southall Football Club. From the early 1930s crowds of 20,000 were said to attend matches here.  Grass banks around the perimeter of the pitch became concrete terracing and a wooden grandstand was incorporating dressing rooms, replaced after a fire in the 1940s. From the 1959s spectator numbers grew less and in 1992 the club moved out and the site was used for housing.  All around the site are buildings and structures which may have been part of the Stadium.

Grand Union Canal
Weir which allows overflow water into the Yeading
A number of docks have been built into the gas works site and subsequently filled in.
Entrance to Tickler's Dock. This belonged to the firm of Tickler who manufactured jam. Flled in.
Mitre Dock. filled in. This was often referred to by boatmen as 'Jam-Ole'. The firm of Kearly & Tonge, the biscuit manufacturers, used the dock and are believed to have been the last commercial users of the canal for their weekly coal deliveries.Johnson Road
Scott’s Emulsion factory. Scott’s Emulsion is cod liver oil, developed by Alfred Scott in America to taste more palatable.  The factory was built before the Great War. The product is now part of Glaxo. A mosaic panel which was on the factory wall has been relocated.

Rubastic Road
Rubastic Works. Rubastic was an ‘artificial rubber’ compound used for making golf balls and other things. The firm was founded in Switzerland in 1914
West London Cold Store. This seems to have originated with United Carlo Gatti, Stevenson and Slatters Ltd.

Scott’s Road
96 Scotsman Pub
Hosiery works.  Holeproof Hosiery who made stockings in Rayon, Lisle and Cashmere, in the 1920s and 1930s
Wallpaper factory 1914
Crown Cork Factory.  Crown Cork is an American company originating from the early 1890s with world-wide interests. The came here in 1922 leaving a site in Shoreditch which had become too small The Southall site was previously an R.E.M.E searchlight depot and a wallpaper factory.  Offices fronted into Scotts Road and at the rear was a siding rented from GWR. They had research laboratories on site and an Artesian Well was sunk in 1935 to 295 feet.  In 1996/7 the US parent company wanted to acquire The Metal Box Co., and the European Commission Crown said that in order to do this they must sell of 5 viable aerosol plants in Europe. Southall went to the US Can Co, who made metal cans there. The site was sold and production was moved to Merthyr in 1999.  Production ceased in 2002. The site has since been used for warehousing.

Southall Gas works

Southall Gas Works. This works was constructed by the Brentford Gas ci, after their act 1868 had allowed an enlargement of their. They bought land, which had been the Southall brickfield plus a pond and lavender bushes. They also took over an older works on a site to the east. The initial works was designed by Evans, who had also designed Beckton. In the late 19tth and early 20th the works expanded rapidly. Munitions work was undertaken here in the Great War and chemical plants were also added. The company amalgamated with the Gas Light and Coke co in 1926 and rebuilding ensued. One of the largest waterless holders in the North Thames area was built in the 1930s here and had on the tip the letters ‘LH’ as a guide to aeroplanes. It was also possible to pay 6d a time to go up in the lift to the top of the holder. Coal came by rail from Yorkshire and Derbyshire and the internal rail system Railway system had a Ruston and Hornsby diesel loco and 2 steam locos. The works was nationalised in 1949 and was part of North Thames Gas. In the early 1960s coal was replaced as a feedstock by liquid petroleum and there was a pipeline from the Esso plant at Fawley. A Natural Gas Reforming Plant was built here in 1968 and North Sea gas was processed via the West London Feeder Main. The works closed in 1973. In 2007 three holders remained in use on the site. A dock from the canal was filled in during the late 20th. The site has subsequently been used for storage of vehicles in connection with Heathrow airport.
Paraffin Oil works. This included its own dock from the canal
Aldersgate Chemical Works on site 1890s demolished 1935. In 1654 Humphrey Primatt started to make drugs at 66 Aldersgate Street. By the mid-19th the company had been taken over by George Atkinson. Who then moved the works to Southall.  The works was taken over by Thomas Whiffen who built up a company making a wide range of drugs many of which were plant based. They moved it Fulham in 1918
Southall products works, on the banks of the canal was a private company with a lead chamber process for making sulphuric acid.

Western Road
Prince of Wales. Pub
Pentecostal Church of God. Opened by the Weslyan Methodists in 1876 as the first Methodist church in Southall.
New Bharat coach station

Sources
Canal Walks
Fisons. Booklet
Friends of the Earth.  Gas works in the London area
North Thames Gas. Southall Gas Works 1869-1969
North Thames Gas. Visit of Institution of Gas Engineers to Southall Gas Works 1963
Pevsner and Cherry, London North West
Southall Football Club. Web site
Stewart. Gas works in the North Thames gas area

Comments

Elizabeth said…
Just been to Mitre Square to view 'Ripper's Corner' - fascinating to think that Kearley & Tonge, who had two warehouses in the square, are now Somerfield!

Popular posts from this blog

Bromley by Bow

South Norwood

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town