Alternative Uses For London's Gasholders

Harry Rosehill
By Harry Rosehill Last edited 62 months ago
Alternative Uses For London's Gasholders
Original photos from Shutterstock and Tee Cee

Scattered across London are remnants of the city's industrial past. Gasholders are one such relic. Lying across the zone 2 and zone 3 hinterlands are plenty of the circular metal structures, although they're now defunct — awesome though they might be, they are not how a modern city stores gas.

So what to do with these old structures? People have a fondness for the things and want to see them remain in some format. But with land such a precious commodity in London these days, can we really afford to let them rot without use? Of course not. Here are six well-thought out alternative uses for London's gasholders.

1. Aquarium

Seeing as London's getting a see-through swimming pool dangled between two blocks of luxury flats — although obviously, it's delayed — bringing vast quantities of water into the city to be ogled at is now clearly OK. And while staring at people swimming has a novelty factor, we can't underrate the original reason people like to ogle water. Aquariums. See our excellently photoshopped image above for proof of concept.

2. Urban exploration reality TV show

The British public can't get enough of a reality TV show that drags celebs kicking and screaming outside of their comfort zone. Make them ballroom dance. Chuck them down a ski jump. Put them in the jungle with lots of creepy crawlies. It goes on and on.

Well here's an idea. Get the c-listers clambering up gasholders, like those urban explorer folks like to do. No ropes or anything to give the show a real sense of tension.

3. Avocado Cafe

Massive floating avocado in a gasholder? Original images from Shutterstock and Gus Tyler

London cannot get enough of avocados. The delightfully healthy bastards are the root cause of the London housing crisis — young people are splashing all their cash on the creamy green things instead of property. How reckless of them!

So let's fill an empty gasholder with a concept cafe. On that cafe's roof? A giant avocado, of course. And it will be named: HassHolder.

4. Oversized stationery holder

Excuse the dodgy photoshop, but you get the idea. Original photos from Shutterstock and M@

Because where else will we store all the oversized pens?!

5. Fart off

Baked beans, to get the competition going. Photo: Shutterstock

Ever looked at an empty gasholder and thought it resembles something? Some sort of an arena, perhaps? It's like the industrial revolution version of the octagon in mixed martial arts. Well we've got the perfect competition for the structures.

It's time to put the 'gas' back into gasholder. This is a two-part competition. The first part sees contestants speed eating baked beans. You get a point for each tin of baked beans you manage to finish in a five minute time period. Then the baked beans take their toll on the human body. Then it's time for the gas. The contestants have a fart off, and judges score their farts out of ten. The winner is the person with the highest score.*

Note: The scoring system is a work in progress, if anyone has any better ideas, comments below.

King's Cross gasholder flats. Photo: Shutterstock

6. Luxury flats like everything else in London

Oh wait. Someone's already done that.

Last Updated 10 January 2019

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