Archived Report - Coal Research Establishment, Gloucs - 2/11/07

[bubblehead]

Though this site was strictly not industrial i've put in here as it was under the control of a nationalised industry, National Coal Board. Now for the history lesson.

The CRE was founded in 1950 by Jacob Bronowski, the then Director of Research for the NCB. Its purpose was to investigate alternate uses for coal. There main triumph being the development of a process were they could extract oil from coal to use as an energy source. However this process was deemed uneconomically viable to carry out on mass. The CRE still exist on the site today in offices that are used as a business park. The research side was closed in 1995 after the dismantling of the NCB

The site is made up of different test cells, ovens stokers and originally test equipment.










Coal still left around the site in various storage buildings


Stoker from one of the test stations












One for Dweeb, a NCB relic left up on one of the roofs