Hubert Pragnell - Industrial Britain: An Architectural History

To Dorothea who still prefers a Queen Anne footstool to Battersea Power Station.

I would like to thank those who helped me in the writing of this book. To know what to put in or leave out is not easy and the knowledge of resident experts is essential. In particular I would like to thank Marilyn Tweddle and Grace McCombie for their advice on what to see in Durham and Tyneside; John and Marion Pearse for their wide knowledge of railway and canal buildings; Margaret Wade who alerted me to suitable buildings for inclusion in Lancashire; the staff at Gladstone Pottery Museum, Longton; Leeds Civic Trust and Anne Martin of Bristol Leisure Services.

I am also grateful for the expert eye of Simon Bradley with his up-to-date encyclopedic knowledge of English architecture gleaned through his editorship of Pevsners Architectural Guides for corrected points of dating, attributions and spelling. And finally but not least for Lilly Phelan at Batsford who has guided the revision of my book with patience and understanding, especially with last minute additions.

For many people, the study of architectural styles and influences means those relating to cathedrals, churches, country houses and perhaps castles. The idea of looking at factories, warehouses, mills, power stations or gasworks fills few with enthusiasm, conjuring up visions of soot-covered walls, prefabricated sheds, tall chimneys belching forth thick columns of smoke. Our memories might also be tainted with visions of the furnace-lit night skies of Sheffield, or noxious smells from chemical works, tanneries and breweries, or even the discharge of chemicals into rivers or canals. I have sympathy for this impression, and in Britains changing industrial climate much of this is true. However, if we accept this without question, an important part of our heritage may be lost along the path of wholesale redevelopment.

We rightly condemn what has become obsolete or insanitary and each century must make its own mark on progress. I do not wish to advocate that Britain should become an industrial theme park but that a happy balance should be struck in a world of increasingly rapid transition. In the nineteenth century Britain was a power whose industrial and social advances were the envy of much of the world. We had invented and developed steam power and the railway locomotive, made distances of hundreds of miles over land achievable within hours. Can it be right to destroy the buildings and landscapes that created our so-called greatness?

This book is the result of an interest in industrial buildings over many years. I was born within walking distance of the historic London borough of Greenwich, home to Inigo Joness Queens House, Wrens Royal Hospital (then the Royal Naval College), Vanburghs neo-medieval castle on Maze Hill, Hawksmoors St Alfege Church, Georgian terraces on Crooms Hill and the Gothic Revival Our Ladye Star of the Sea further up. The International Style Greenwich Town Hall brings us into the twentieth century and the medieval Eltham Palace is less than a couple of miles away. So, how was my interest in industrial buildings piqued? From the promenade in front of the Royal Naval College a vast panorama of industry opened up; to the east was Blackwall dominated by its gasworks power station and the Tate & Lyle sugar refinery on the horizon. Several hundred yards to the right was the huge Greenwich power station with its curious Gothic turreted chimneys. Looking westwards there was the Deptford power station and beyond that the Georgian terraces of the former Royal Victualling Yard. As a child I was fascinated by the atmosphere, smoky, yes, but full of life, with large cargo ships and tugs with trains of barges bringing produce to feed and fuel the warehouses, power stations and gasworks along the Thameside.

It was this environment of buildings of national importance and a skyline of chimneys, gas holders and brick warehouses that nourished my interest in architecture. Many architecture books in the shops and on library shelves of my childhood were about cathedrals, churches and country houses, and I wondered why the industrial side of our heritage seemed to receive little attention, at least until recent decades. I hope this book goes some way to showing the diversity of industrial buildings, some of which are Grade I or II* listed. Also, eight out of the 32 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Britain are former industrial sites.

Although textbooks tend to identify the start of the industrial revolution with Hargreavess Spinning Jenny in the mid-eighteenth century, records and remains of production go back centuries before this. Huguenot weavers settled in Kent and Sussex in the sixteenth century; two centuries earlier ironworks were set up in the Weald, producing anchors and primitive cannon. Until the middle of the seventeenth century most ships were probably built on beaches or excavated inlets from sea or river. However, with ships increasing in size, they began to be built in specially demarcated yards protected by wooden fences. By the eighteenth century these had become establishments of considerable size and included the royal dockyards of Chatham, Deptford, Woolwich, Sheerness, Portsmouth and Plymouth. Special buildings stores, roperies, sail lofts and accommodation for senior dockyard officials were developed. Similar establishments developed for the merchant fleet along the Thames, Tyne, Mersey, Forth, Clyde and numerous other rivers and estuaries.