WITH a slow, sad, balletic turn one of the most prominent actors in what has been Newport's industrial story made its exit from the stage.

Over 280 feet tall and 180 feet in diameter at its base, drably grey and with the uninspiring proportions of a giant tin of cat food, the gas holder was never going to be one of the star players in our cast of landmarks.

"But it was one of the first things you saw on the train coming in to Newport which told you that you were nearing home," said Keith Farron, a Corus spokesman and one of the witnesses to the old tower's demise.

"It went up with the plant around 1961 and became operational in 1964, and now its day is done.

"The economics of modern steelmarking have caught up with it."

Even in the heyday of Llanwern, when 11,000 men worked there, the gas tower was a giant, squat among the blast furnaces, the immensity of its base giving a misleading impression of its height.

"In the process of making iron a gas was given off. It wasn't the best-quality gas in the world.

"You certainly wouldn't want to heat your home with it but it was fine for industrial uses," said Dave Prothero, Corus' engineering manager in charge of regeneration.

"Its usefulness came to an end in 2001 with the going of the blast furnaces and the transferring of work to Port Talbot. Its going marks the end of an era."

An audience of no more than a couple of dozen were there to see the old tower's final bow. The backdrop was that of a tired post-industrial scene, the rusting power house barely distinguishable from the acres of red-black ash and sinter surrounding it.

At 1.55pm a hooter blew, the signal that there was five minutes to go.

Another hooter blew as a warning of imminent destruction and then a countdown could be heard over hand-held radio sets.

On the stroke of 2pm, 20 charges with no more than 20 milliseconds between them blew, and the tower began a slow fall to the right with a twisting motion.

A weak sun caught the circular roof as the titanic mass of metal tilted, the safety rails snapping and twisting as if they had been made of nothing more than gossamer.

As if in slow motion the buckling steel split and folded into grotesque shapes. The final death was obscured by a cloud of orange dust.

The end, if not quick, was clean. The old tower collapsed almost to the ground.

"The boys at Technical Demolition Services will be proud of that one," someone said, but there was a discernible air of regret.

A few of those watching had not been born when the tower went up, when a monarch came to its debut.

Industry is unsentimental. "That's the end of a landmark," someone else said, but as the tower took its final curtain and the dust drifted away on a south-westerly wind, few spoke.

It was a melancholy last act of a dance which began in the white heat of technological change, continued through four decades and ended in pathos.