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All the work which has been shown on these photos was carried out in 1927 and was a far cry from the old gas works. These were located just below Bings farm and in land used by Botany Bleach works. I can only presume the gas was methane in those far off days.

Whaley had ‘boards’ that ran things in those days; such as school boards and such like.

The first meeting of the Whaley and Yeardsley Board was held at the Jodrell Arms on October 13th 1863 and this board was the forerunner of the Whaley and Yeardsley Council which later became Whaley Bridge Town Council.

But back in the mid 1860’s the Board made itself responsible for many things: roads, footpaths etc and it also tried to buy the Whaley Bridge Gas Company in 1866.

In that year the Board decided to light the streets of WB from the 1st August until the 30th April. The Gas Company agreed to supply the gas at a rate of 34 shillings per lamp and a further £2.12.00 for manually lighting, cleaning and putting out the lamps.

But it seems things never change from those days to these: the Board fell out with the WBGC in the 1870’s over payments for the lamps and so the WBGC turned the gas off and the streets were in darkness from Sept 1873 until Oct 1875 when the Board had to agree to the WBGC’s demands for the supply of gas at 5 shillings per 1,000 cu ft.

Although the Board were in constant negotiations with WBGC it did have time to consider other matters. One such matter was that someone had told the Board that James White kept a pig in his cellar and the Board sent someone round to see if this was true and if so remove the pig.

Whether the pig was there or not I don’t know but I would have liked to have seen it being removed and where the Board put it.

Well it’s back to 1927 and here is the start of one of the gasholders:

A little bit more progress on the job and this time it is the inside of one of the gasholders.