York Historic Environment Record

The york central audit of heritage assets report mentions that the timber drying shed was constructed between 1890-91 and demolished after 2012.

Elements of the gas retort building were excavated in 2023 by York Archaeology.

Taken from York Archaeology 2023:
The first historical documentation which identifies the presence of a structure within the site boundary is a c.1880 plan from the Network Rail National Records Centre. On this map, a clear L-shaped building and a smaller circular addition within the crook can be identified. These buildings were not constructed as part of the initial phase of Network expansion in the 1870s, suggesting their importance to be of a lower priority, or perhaps constructed as newer technology developed, compared to other infrastructure developed beforehand, such as the coal depot.

These structures are not named until the 1928 area plan, in which they are termed an ‘Oil Gas Station’, and reference is given to this building as an Oil Gas works producing gas for the illumination of train carriages. ‘Oil Gas’, as a broad term for certain types of compressed gases, was used as a common replacement for traditional, dim oil lamps used in the interior of passenger train carriages. The first noted use of the gas in this way in the UK was by the London & North Western and Metropolitan Railways in 1875 – the adoption of this alternative fuel then spread across the network, with dedicated Oil Gas works of varying sizes and capabilities being constructed across the country, including by the Great Northern Railway. These works were most commonly designed to manufacture gas on a local scale from local suppliers of coke, anthracite or coal, creating a specific Oil Gas called ‘Producer Gas’ . In addition to Producer Gas, materials such as once-refined paraffin oil, could also form Oil Gas . The Oil Gas Works at York would likely have been ‘miniature’ in scale, designed specifically to refuel the newly-adopted gas-based Pintsch system of lighting in passing train carriages.

The type of structure required for the manufacturing of Oil Gas would likely be quite distinct; it stands to reason that structural elements unique to this type of manufacturing, in addition to probable remnants of waste by-product, either whole or in trace on the structural
remains, would therefore likely be easily identifiable in excavation; to this end, a substantial collection of evidence of Oil-Gas manufacturing was subsequently uncovered during this excavation, identifiable in a number of ways. The physical form of the structures identified within the 2023 excavation are somewhat consistent with that of a gas retort.

Industrial Railway Society (Unpublished document). SYO2674.

Dr Bill Fawcett, John A Ives and Alison Sinclair, 2013, YORK CENTRAL AUDIT OF HERITAGE ASSETS,NOVEMBER 2013 (Report). SYO1457.

York Archaeology, 2023, National Railway Museum Café (Unpublished document). SYO3024.