Apley Park gas works

Stephen Dewhirst from Broseley Local History Society had a rare guided visit of part of Apley Park on Sunday and was surprised to see that the ‘Retort house’ for the gas works was still in tact.  This was later used to house the generating plant for the electricity supply to Apley Park (now the house is usually called Apley Hall).

Steven’s friend Ian West has been studying Country House Technology for some years and found that ”a 1905 brochure produced by the leading installers of country house electricity plant, Drake and Gorham, shows that they supplied a steam-powered electricity generator capable of running 450 lights (which made it relatively large) to W H Foster of Apley Park”.  The Gas works “was built by (or at least the equipment for it was supplied by) George Bower of St Neots some time between 1868 and 1874.”

You can get some idea of how the Gas works looked by clicking here. It has some information on George Bower.

You can see also see a paper written jointly by Ian West by clicking here.

Apley Estate is strictly private at all times.