This feature is brought to you by the Pinner Local History Society
Before electricity came to Pinner many houses and shops had gas lighting. The few street-lamps were also gas, with a lamplighter looking after them – riding around on a bicycle with his ladder. The gas was produced at the Pinner Gas Company’s gas works, where 40 Eastcote Road is now, by heating coal carted from the railway station. Locals remembered an occasion when the pressure was worryingly low and the manager’s wife climbed on top of the gas-holder to maintain it.
Some richer households would have had an electricity generator. One was The Towers, home to Alfred Marshall – chairman of the gas company and also of the local voluntary fire brigade. At fundraising fetes in his grounds the brigade displayed pumping water from the Pinn – handy practice when in 1902 his generator caught fire and the brigade was called.
Electricity mains were first laid in principal streets in the winter of 1914/1915 – during the First World War – by the Colne Valley Electric Supply Company Ltd. The company’s transforming station and a showroom and offices were constructed in Love Lane. The building – with a more recent Art Deco frontage – is now Cafe Nero.
Our next meeting on Thursday, October 5 features Melanie Winterbotham on The Demon Drink, the Gin Craze of the 18th century and the Temperance Movement: 8pm Pinner Village Hall, Chapel Lane Carpark, HA5 1AA – visitors welcome, suggested donation £3.
0 Comments