Battersea Power Station

A walk around the former Battersea Power Station from the nearby Tube station.

Construction of the coal fired Battersea Power Station began in 1929. To appease concerns about building a power station so close to the centre of London a grand building with Sir Gilles Giblert Scott as one of its architects was designed.

The power station was constructed in two halves, Battersea A being complete by 1935 and Battersea B started in 1937 but not completed until 1955 due to the war. Externally the two stations were mirror images of each other with the boiler houses in the middle and turbine halls A and B at either side. Prior to the construction of the B power station a temporary metal partition was constructed along what would become the middle of the building.

Below - Picture from Wikipedia of Battersea A Power Station (By Andy Dingley (scanner) - Scan from Foreword by E. Royston Pike (1938) Our Generation, London: Waverley Book Company, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11670538)

The A station closed in 1975 and the B station in 1983. The site was out of use for many years but was granted listed status. Several proposals came and went including a theme park, football stadium and having a modern tower block sprouting from the brick walls. In the end it opened to the public in 2022 as a development of shops, bars and restaurants, offices and apartments. More about the power station can be found on the Wikipedia article. The redevelopment extends to areas around the former power station. To coincide with the redevelopment the Bakerloo Line of the London Underground was extended to Battersea Power Station station. I took the tube to this new station and explored the site on foot.

Below - Battersea Power Station station with the power station and surrounding redevelopment in the background.

 

1967 Map

Below - Two of the four chimneys seen from the south entrance to the complex. The boiler house was in the huge building between the chimneys, apartments and offices have been constructed in this space.

 

Below - The elaborate brickwork is not confined to the facades, it is used throughout the building.

Below - The former coal wharf on which coal arrived by barge from Newcastle. The two cranes that unloaded the coal survived in to recent years but the area is now an outdoor seating area.

Below - Turbine Hall A. Behind the windows on the upper floor is the former Control Room A

Below - Turbine Hall A. The overhead cranes used for installation and maintenance of the turbines have been retained. Even in the interior that wouldn't have been seen by the public is ornate with similar Art Deco styling to the exterior.

Below - A piece of switchgear displayed at the north entrance to the site. Next to this a display space had an exhibition about the various plans drawn up for the site in its years of dereliction.

Below - Turbine Hall B. Build during and after the war, the interior of this part of the complex has a much more austere design.

Below - Control Room B is now a bar with the preserved control panels retained around the back of what is now the seating area.

It is possible to ascend one of the chimneys in a glass elevator for excellent views at the top, though this was quite a busy attraction and I decided to stick to just walking round the site.

More information about the complex established in the former power station can be found in their website.  

Narrow Gauge Industrial Railway Under The Humber Bridge

 A couple of visits to the Far Ings tile works in the 1990s

The life of a brick or tile begins with clay in the ground. Along the south bank of the River Humber is some of the best clay and at one time the riverside around Barton on Humber was lined with small brick and tile works. The works were established next to the clay pits that supplied them but as the clay was gradually being taken from further from the works narrow gauge railways were used to take the clay to the works. The last of these railways was still in use in the 1990s at the William Blyth tile works and remarkably passed under the Humber Bridge with few people realising it was there.

I visited a couple of times while the railway was running, traveling from Hull by bike over the bridge. Firstly in 1994 when I saw and photographed the clay being extracted at the pit just east of the bridge. Secondly in 1995 with a visit to the works arranged as part of a school project.

1932 Map (the first brick works West of Barton)

Rail Map Online view (select "Industry" in Layers)

Below - Having brought the empty tipper wagon from the works the driver gets in the JCB and loads as much clay as it will carry.

Below - With the tipper fully loaded it it propelled back to the works.

Below - The railway passing under the bridge. With the track being in the grass it was easily missed looking from the bridge. As the pit was gradually worked out to the south the railway was realigned. It looked more like straight lengths of track joined at angles than a curved line. This railway was a completely different line to that shown on the old map from a pit to the south of the works.

Below - The line passed through the engine shed.

Below - The tipper was uncoupled from the loco (a Motor Rail named "Ivor") and hooked up to a rope worked incline into the works.

Below - Another view of Ivor, this is at the foot of the incline and just to the west of its engine shed.

Below - The smoking chimney of one of the kilns.

Below - The clay is tipped in to a hopper which feeds a machine that extruded blocks of clay that are then taken to be formed in to tiles.

The works now forms part of the Humber Bridge Garden Centre with William Blyth still in business at another old tileworks further east along the bank of the Humber (though not using narrow gauge railways). They mainly produce handmade tiles for historic building restoration projects. 

Llanberis

A visit to the Llanberis Lake Railway, National Slate Museum and the site of Dinorwic Quarry

The mountains above Llanberis in North Wales were for many years chipped away at the Dinorwic Slate Quarry to produce slate for the roofs of the world. That slate would be brought down from the mountain and much of it dispatched to the coast to be loaded in to ships. Due to its nature it had to be handled carefully and the best way was by rail. Llanberis once had railways on four gauges, the standard gauge of 4ft 8 1/2in of the London & North Western Railway's line through the town. 4ft of the Padarn Railway, the quarry's 'mainline' that took the slate to Port Dinorwic for export. 800mm of the Snowdon Mountain Railway that took tourists up the mountain since 1896 and 1ft 10 3/4in of the railways within the quarries. The wagons of the quarry railways were loaded four to a wagon on to the Padarn Railway wagons to take them to the port. The Padarn Railway closed in 1961 and the Dinorwic Quarry altogether in 1969. Since then a stretch of the former Padarn Railway along the lake has been reopened as the Llanberis Lake Railway at a slight change from the quarry gauge tracks of 1ft 11 1/2in. Three of the former Dinorwic Quarry Hunslet steam locos and a Ruston diesel were re-gauged to operate the line. The former workshops now form the National Slate Museum.

1914 Map (north side of Llyn Padarn)

Rail Map Online View

Google Maps

Below - The Llanberis Lake Railway runs from a station close to the town and the Snowdon Mountain Railway, this was a modern extension built in 2003.

Details of the railway can be found on the Llanberis Lake Railway website.

Below - From the Llanberis station one of the quarries can be seen with its various working levels and inclines on the left as Dolbadarn runs round its train.

Below - Approaching Gilfach Ddu alongside the old quarry workshops out of shot on the right. The old map shows a railway line running where the road can now be seen.

Below - Approaching Gilfach Ddu station one of the quarries can be seen in the background. Note the line crossing the road in to the workshops.

Below - Part of the workshop building is used to maintain stock for the railway, just as it was when it was the quarry workshops.

Below - Dolbadarn is serviced between trains. The workshop building can be seen on the right.

Below - On the eastern edge of the old map an incline can be seen and this survives to the east of the Gilfach Ddu station.

Below- South of the incline a tunnel can be seen this is now sealed off. Much of the Dinorwic Quarry site is now a power station which also acts as a giant battery by pumping water up the mountain at times of low demand and generating electricity from turbines at times of higher demand. Until recently it was possible to visit the complex but the visitor centre has since closed and there is no public access.

Below - Next to the tunnel is the former engine shed for the 4ft gauge Padarn Railway. It was in this shed that 1848 built loco Fire Queen was shut up in 1886 when it was replaced with a new Hunslet loco, not emerging until the closure of the quarry in 1969. It has since been on display at Penrhyn Castle Museum.

Below - Close to the foot of the incline shown above is a small office building and the tracks that went under the roadway in to one of the quarries. The quarry is now used as a diving site.

Below - The former quarry now used for diving. Note the ariel ropeway across the quarry and the various working levels evident, each had narrow gauge lines from the incline to the west of the current Gilfach Ddu station.

Below - Another access to the above quarry was from a tunnel which had a narrow gauge line connecting to the incline.

Below - The building shown between the tunnel and the incline.

Below - The lower level has been refurbished and now demonstrates how the narrow gauge slate wagons were lowered from the various levels of the quarry to the Padarn Railway.

Below - The upper levels of the incline remain derelict.

Below - The roadway bridge under the lower level of the incline.

Below - At the foot of the incline a more gentle incline connected it with the workshops and the Padarn Railway.

The workshops can now be visited as the National Slate Museum. The workshops brought together various trades such as woodworking, metal working, foundries and forges to make and repair various pieces of machinery used in the complex. Much of the machinery was driven by lineshafts from a water wheel at the back of the site.

National Slate Museum website

Below - A lathe driven from the lineshafts.

Below - A boiler off one of the Quarry Hunslet engines.

Below - Forges.

Below - Saw benches.

Below - The foundry.

Below - The pattern workshop.

Below - Sawmill.

Below - Lineshafts off the waterwheel.

Below - Electrical room in the yard in the centre of the site.

Below - Thomas Smith built steam crane, this is on 7ft gauge track (a common gauge for steam cranes) a 5th gauge for the Llanberis area.

Below - Another Thomas Smith machine is this crawler excavator.

Below - The yard at the centre of the workshop complex. The 4ft Padarn track and narrow gauge quarry tracks can be seen.

Below - In the car park are a row of buildings shown on the old map that are now various shops. This one was evidently a weighbridge.

Below - Next to the car park is a pit head building that has been moved to the museum site though is now closed and lacks an information board.

 

1901 Map

East of the above was the main part of the Dinorwic Quarry site, now occupied by the power station. Though not accessible there are good views from the A4086 across Llyn Peris and the various working levels and inclines can be seen.