Gas Retort House, St Audrie's Holiday Centre is a Grade II listed building in the Somerset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 16 November 1984. A Mid 19th century Gas retort house, agricultural building.
Gas Retort House, St Audrie's Holiday Centre
- WRENN ID
- errant-grate-crimson
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Somerset
- Constituency
- Tiverton and Minehead MP: Rachel Gilmour (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 16 November 1984
- Type
- Gas retort house, agricultural building
- Period
- Mid 19th century
- Address
- Gas Retort House, St Audrie's Holiday Centre, West Quantoxhead
- OS grid reference
- ST 104 428
- Coordinates
- 51.17746, -3.28312
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Gas Retort House at St. Audrie's Holiday Centre is an agricultural building dating from around 1855, likely designed by architect John Norton. It is constructed from Sampford Brett red sandstone random rubble with brick and Bath stone dressings, topped with a double Roman tiled roof. The building features a louvred hood on the left side and a square brick stack rising from a stone base in the southeast corner.
The structure has an L-plan layout, consisting of a two-cell block oriented east-west and a single-cell north wing, all in a Gothic style. It is a single-storey building with a layout of 1:2 bays. The gabled north wing includes an unglazed rose window, while the right return has a damaged segmental doorway with no doors. The north front features segmental-headed long two-light casements that are partly boarded, along with outer bays that have segmental-headed stable doors and a damaged rectangular light above to the right. The right return faces the remains of a gas holder and includes a quatrefoil opening in the gable end, as well as a two-light segmental-headed mullioned window with wooden cusped tracery heads.
Inside, the left-hand room, as of the last survey in October 1983, only had a small segmental-headed opening into the chimney visible, and a louvred opening in the roof that was in poor condition. Any remaining features were obscured by agricultural machinery. This gas retort house was originally built to supply gas to St. Audries, which is now a school, and is one of the earliest estate gasworks. Welsh coal for the gasworks was landed at a now-vanished quay about half a mile to the north. The building is listed primarily for its historic interest and was noted to be in poor condition at the time of the survey in October 1983.
Local climate
Gas Retort House, St Audrie's Holiday Centre receives an average of 940 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 71% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 79% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 20 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 79% of listed buildings. Of these, 8 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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- The Harness Room, St Audrie's Holiday Centre
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- Gates, Gatepiers and Railings Fronting St Audrie's School
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- Peregrine House, St Audrie's School
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- Stowey Lodge