Potential New Kop by Mar-24

[dragonspark]

yes quite right Billy and i was one of all those average attendances, when i told my mate that our first home game of the 77/78 season was down to about 3500, following the failure to go up 76/77 with very good attendances especially to the end, he was quite taken aback, if memory serves it was only in October as results improved that attendances did to bolstered by the start of two good cup runs.
However looking at attendances over the last decade even while in the wilderness we havebeen the best or next to best attended team give or take, the interest the takeover has created has manifested huge interest and support even though we are still in the wilderness, there is a huge fan base that is hungry for success, i realise that history shows the fans may turn away if things do not go right but at the moment there is backers we have never had before, there is a better chance of sustained growth, or at least there is in my dreams

[NewportRoadEnd]

Originally Posted by Inside Left

The clinker I have refered to came from The gasworks on Rivulet Rd. It was a material that could be sharp to the touch and cut you and I believe was the result of the Gas manufacturing process.
Examples of it are still around the area as it was used to build rough walls. Any one from Hightown will recall the play area at Gatefield being made up of Clinker.

The gasworks at Rivulet Road are long gone, all that's on site now is a modern above ground installation (AGI) that's controlling pressures for the local area. A Medium Pressure feed comes round the back past Lidl and across the old gasworks site and is stepped down in the AGI for local homes and businesses.

Few years ago what was left on site was drastically rationalised and remediated, and land handed over to Wales and West Housing for development (no relationship to Wales & West Utilities who inherited the old works at Rivulet Road.) The gas that used to be stored in the holders on Rivulet Road is now 'linepacked' in the pipes instead.

Clinker is the left over of the burned fuel from the retort ovens within which the coal is gassified - will have included all sorts including coke, grit, charcoal, slag etc. Not an issue from a contamination perspective itself, but will be interesting to see what else is down there!

If you're really in to local industrial history, it's worth trying to figure out the location of the first gasworks in Wrexham - Willows Works. Lots of suggestions, not much hard evidence. My best guess (and I believe the guess of the current owners of the gas network in this area) based on the historical record and some of the on site walls is opposite the Tuttle Street car park on the other side of St Giles Way, but there is literally no engineering in the ground suggesting that anything of that scale was ever built there - no pipes, for eg.

[billybersham]

Originally Posted by dragonspark

yes quite right Billy and i was one of all those average attendances, when i told my mate that our first home game of the 77/78 season was down to about 3500, following the failure to go up 76/77 with very good attendances especially to the end, he was quite taken aback, if memory serves it was only in October as results improved that attendances did to bolstered by the start of two good cup runs.
However looking at attendances over the last decade even while in the wilderness we havebeen the best or next to best attended team give or take, the interest the takeover has created has manifested huge interest and support even though we are still in the wilderness, there is a huge fan base that is hungry for success, i realise that history shows the fans may turn away if things do not go right but at the moment there is backers we have never had before, there is a better chance of sustained growth, or at least there is in my dreams

Well said Dragonpark Enjoy the ride.

[mitchelltown]

I went to my first Wrexham match with my uncle around 1947 at the age of 8. We used to enter via the Crispen Lane entrance and then made our way up the back of the cop. If memory serves me right I remember it as has been alluded to already (clinker), If, as it has been explained, clinker could well be not contaminated there may be not as many problems as many think.

[wxminbrum]

Originally Posted by dragonspark

theres a big lump of soil there on the kop, where the hell are they going to put that

Mullin Mound or Hyde Hill.

We're going all posh, like the tennis at Wimbledon.

Strawberries & Cream for £1.00!!

[dragonspark]

well heres to hoping there is no or little contamination, still going to need one hell of a hole to put it all in

[Inside Left]

Originally Posted by NewportRoadEnd

The gasworks at Rivulet Road are long gone, all that's on site now is a modern above ground installation (AGI) that's controlling pressures for the local area. A Medium Pressure feed comes round the back past Lidl and across the old gasworks site and is stepped down in the AGI for local homes and businesses.

Few years ago what was left on site was drastically rationalised and remediated, and land handed over to Wales and West Housing for development (no relationship to Wales & West Utilities who inherited the old works at Rivulet Road.) The gas that used to be stored in the holders on Rivulet Road is now 'linepacked' in the pipes instead.

Clinker is the left over of the burned fuel from the retort ovens within which the coal is gassified - will have included all sorts including coke, grit, charcoal, slag etc. Not an issue from a contamination perspective itself, but will be interesting to see what else is down there!

If you're really in to local industrial history, it's worth trying to figure out the location of the first gasworks in Wrexham - Willows Works. Lots of suggestions, not much hard evidence. My best guess (and I believe the guess of the current owners of the gas network in this area) based on the historical record and some of the on site walls is opposite the Tuttle Street car park on the other side of St Giles Way, but there is literally no engineering in the ground suggesting that anything of that scale was ever built there - no pipes, for eg.

Thanks for all that Newport. Yes I have always had a keen interest in local history and having been brought up a few hundred yards from the Willow Bridge have looked (in an Amateur way) into the area.
The 1874 mapping of the surrounds of Willow Brewery show the towns ,probable first gasometer, being to the rear of the recently demolished Musical Theatre building up an entry off Salop Rd. The gasometer being on the sunny banks of bright blue Gwenfro. Its gas lit the new Willow Brewery as well as a number of street lights in the town. Sorry I am rambling again. Before we know we will be discussing the Willow incinerator. and towns electrics

[NewportRoadEnd]

Originally Posted by Inside Left

Thanks for all that Newport. Yes I have always had a keen interest in local history and having been brought up a few hundred yards from the Willow Bridge have looked (in an Amateur way) into the area.
The 1874 mapping of the surrounds of Willow Brewery show the towns ,probable first gasometer, being to the rear of the recently demolished Musical Theatre building up an entry off Salop Rd. The gasometer being on the sunny banks of bright blue Gwenfro. Its gas lit the new Willow Brewery as well as a number of street lights in the town. Sorry I am rambling again. Before we know we will be discussing the Willow incinerator. and towns electrics

Interesting...from memory, the last time I discussed this with a gas historian (they exist!) his take was that there was no evidence of the initial gas holder ever being built there other than unreliable mapping...certainly there probably remains more pipes in the ground in that part of the town than you'd know what to do with, so unpicking the truth from the morrass of wood, spun and cast iron and pot mains in that area would be a challenge.

[eastsussex]

Originally Posted by Inside Left

Thanks for all that Newport. Yes I have always had a keen interest in local history and having been brought up a few hundred yards from the Willow Bridge have looked (in an Amateur way) into the area.
The 1874 mapping of the surrounds of Willow Brewery show the towns ,probable first gasometer, being to the rear of the recently demolished Musical Theatre building up an entry off Salop Rd. The gasometer being on the sunny banks of bright blue Gwenfro. Its gas lit the new Willow Brewery as well as a number of street lights in the town. Sorry I am rambling again. Before we know we will be discussing the Willow incinerator. and towns electrics

I think that it may have been the second gasometer Inside Left, or at least the gasometer you refer too was built at the second gasworks in the town, with the first being built a short distance away; although I am not able to give a precise location, at present.

Two chimneys at the gas works were blown down in a hurricane due to a storm which hit the uk on January 6th&7th 1839.

https://www.google.fr/books/edition/...sec=frontcover

The streets were lit with gas from 1837 ‘at least’

https://www.google.fr/books/edition/...sec=frontcover



A public meeting of the ratepayers association at the town hall in 1869 discussed the possibility of building a new gas works in the hope of producing cheaper gas for the townsfolk, and during that meeting, Dr Thomas Eyton Jones (father of Thomas Eyton Jones of Wrexham AFC) recalled the prices of gas from the present gas company, dating back to 1840.
A Counsellor Rymer then took to the floor and stated “the present works were established on a very small scale when the requirements of the town were very different to what they are now. The present company bought those works and although they were removed a little distance from the old site, they were not made adequate to the growing wants of the town”.
And so, as Eyton Jones had quoted the price of gas from the present gas company back to 1840, then it is possible that they bought the old works when the chimneys were blown down in January 1839 and relocated to a nearby site where they built a new gas works to start selling gas, using the existing mains in 1840.

https://newspapers.library.wales/vie...44/4583249/24/

Additionally, back in 1859, there was a letter to the editor of the Advertiser which stated that ‘many would recall the time past when issues were caused by quicksand when a tank for the gasometer was built at the gasworks’.
https://newspapers.library.wales/vie...82/4587285/13/