The CECA Plant and the big muvers on Turner Road
I know this site has been covered by everyone and their dog in the past, but I really do have a passion for pye. It must be something to do with the dramatic scale of the place and its enormous blue snaking pipes that weave their way around the site.
Now don’t be put off by this writing, do have a read, as this place is a truly unique site, it was the largest gas turbine testing establishment in the world... I think just for that it deserves a place in our industrial heritage and should be left for us to play with, and then turned into a theme park so i can be blasted through the big blue pipes.
This was my first successful visit (with several prior recce’s and unsuccessful attempts last year, so don’t be put off if you don’t succeed first, good things come to those that wait...plus a bit of luck usually helps). I’ve had 3 more visits since taking these shots which I will get around to giving you a butchers at, the Plant House and Air House (thanks to Medwayboy for air house info, spot on, had a look last month, very nice
)...also got so near to them fantastic blast doors of Cell 4, moochin about in the pitch black with a very dim flickering torch and no spare batteries, walking over wobbly “safety flooring” knowing that below is a flooded cell scared the hell outa me, I loose me bottle when I’m alone.
I then I got a lift back to the entrance by a Ghurkha sec who wanted me to leave long before I was ready, driving me out I saw oh so many things I wanted to see but he wouldn’t pull over to let me have a look, so i hope to go back sometime very soon.
So he’s some info about some of the main buildings on the site....
The Air House (built 1961)
With a modern design, eastern side is sheet glass, 8 large blue exhaust pipes tower the full length of the building for the 8 compressor/exhausts inside which transported fast moving air to and from the test cells.
Cell 3
Mostly underground, was a supersonic replacement to Cell 2, allowing higher speeds and greater engine temperature ranges. A large building above with a crane lowered engines into the test chamber-with most of the chamber almost entirely underground.
Cell 3 (west)
Smaller building with an altitude test chamber-with one of the largest internal cells for icing tests-to test the affects of ice on the performance on turbines and helicopter rotors. The engines were suspended from the roof of the test cell.
Cell 4 (whoo yaaah)
The largest cell on site built in 1965 as part of the Concorde programme to test supersonic jet engines. The test cell, unique in the world has a mass of pipes, blast doors and electronics. It is connected to the Air House by huge blue pipes and designed to simulate Concord’s flying conditions...Mach 2 (1522 mph) at 61,000ft up to a maximum wind speed of 2,000mph. The amount of energy to run the Air House at the required speed was too great for the sites own power station, so electricity had to be drawn from the National Grid and it could only be powered at night....knowing this you can’t help conjuring up thoughts of the local folks light bulbs dimming when the surge is sucked from the grid.
Number 9 exhauster
Pyestocks designers built the air house on a large scale but had not anticipated the phenomenal force required by cell 4-even with all 8 exhausts running suction was insufficient. So another exhauster was built directly next to Cell 4-as there are 8, this one was simply named Exhauster 9.
A little site history.....
In 1942 the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Turbine Division run by Hayne Constant moved its new facilities to Pyestock in Hampshire. There it merged with the Frank Whittle’s Power Jets design teams and the National Gas Turbine Establishment (NGTE) was created. During its lifetime the huge establishment tested, designed, developed and was an experimental centre for gas and jet turbines and engines for commercial engine companies.
NGTE was built on a former golf course in secluded Pyestock woodland surrounded by MoD land. Mounds of earth were sculptured to help reduce the noise from the engine testing. Its site was chosen as a turbine testing establishment as its activities were top secret and the surrounding woodland would also help dampen the noise. For over 50 years Pyestock lead the way for gas turbine development, with V Bomber, Harrier and Tornado engines tested on site. Every gas turbine installed in Royal Navy Ships was checked here, including the captured Soviet engines which were discreetly examined.
The site was decommissioned in 2000 and may eventually make way for a business park. Tesco’s having been trying to obtain planning permission (just when don’t they??? another council “gift” may grease the wheels I fear) for Europe’s largest distribution centre, but thankfully locals have objected to 24/7 use of 44 ton artics around the local roads, as a new road infrastructure would have to be built around the woodland. I did get rather worried last year when I was down there, the grass “road” of MoD land running up to the site had digger activity going on...I asked the workmen what they were doing and they said they were sorting out the drainage....then a local came along and I had a chat with him, he worked in construction and he said that the only reason he could see why they were doing such work in that particular place would be to sort out supplies for a new possible site in the future, so it may be in the pipeline, so to speak, that it’s nearer than we thought. So I hope the locals keep up the objections so we can all have some more time in Pye as there are still loads I haven’t seen.
So let’s have a look at some gorgeous pipage.....if anyone has a fisheye and can get down there they will surely be mad by the time they leave
Ive just put this shot in because there’s an interesting, well i think its quite interesting anyway, little feature. During my site recces around the perimeter fence i noticed that little 2ft high light green fence surrounding the entire site. I wondered what it could be, all sorts of strange things crossed my strange mind as id never seen anything like it before, was it some sort of “acoustics barrier” but I thought it was far too small for that, maybe a rabbit proof fence, I even wondered was it some kind of electrified weird security device, as this was a highly secret site back in its day, especially when it was unravelling captured Soviet engines.
So when I eventually got in I had to have a closer look at it and I read the words “Herpetosure” on the top of its rim.....painfully racking my brain I knew I had heard of this word before, then it came to me that herpetology was something to do with amphibians, well frogs and lizards sprung to mind first, so after a little googling I found the firm that makes them, and they are little fences to keep crested newts out of pye.....now that somehow warmed me! Come on, ahhhh....
Just love these massive blue tanks and huge pipes of the CECA air drying plant. The tanks are still filled with over 150 tonnes of tiny silica gel balls, like them little polystyrene packaging balls. The compressed air is forced through the tanks to remove any moisture before being circulated around the site back and back into the test cells and the air house....wota trip
Look its me, its me!....im just a shadow of my former self....how profound, naah not really...im very shallow me
A lovely blue sky and the early morning sunrise, pye was all mine for a few moments.....sigh
pretty shadows
The Air House exhaust pipes
Pipes take the compressed air rushing around the site
little padded jackets to help keep the pipes snug and cosy.....see there is something wrong with me, its not just the pipes that need a padded jacket
...and back to the CECA Plant
ah look group hug.....
Come on inside, im full of billions of weeny gel balls....inviting???
Well that was my little tour around the lovely pipes of pye...
thanks for loookin peeps
I know this site has been covered by everyone and their dog in the past, but I really do have a passion for pye. It must be something to do with the dramatic scale of the place and its enormous blue snaking pipes that weave their way around the site.
Now don’t be put off by this writing, do have a read, as this place is a truly unique site, it was the largest gas turbine testing establishment in the world... I think just for that it deserves a place in our industrial heritage and should be left for us to play with, and then turned into a theme park so i can be blasted through the big blue pipes.
This was my first successful visit (with several prior recce’s and unsuccessful attempts last year, so don’t be put off if you don’t succeed first, good things come to those that wait...plus a bit of luck usually helps). I’ve had 3 more visits since taking these shots which I will get around to giving you a butchers at, the Plant House and Air House (thanks to Medwayboy for air house info, spot on, had a look last month, very nice
)...also got so near to them fantastic blast doors of Cell 4, moochin about in the pitch black with a very dim flickering torch and no spare batteries, walking over wobbly “safety flooring” knowing that below is a flooded cell scared the hell outa me, I loose me bottle when I’m alone. I then I got a lift back to the entrance by a Ghurkha sec who wanted me to leave long before I was ready, driving me out I saw oh so many things I wanted to see but he wouldn’t pull over to let me have a look
, so i hope to go back sometime very soon. So he’s some info about some of the main buildings on the site....
The Air House (built 1961)
With a modern design, eastern side is sheet glass, 8 large blue exhaust pipes tower the full length of the building for the 8 compressor/exhausts inside which transported fast moving air to and from the test cells.
Cell 3
Mostly underground, was a supersonic replacement to Cell 2, allowing higher speeds and greater engine temperature ranges. A large building above with a crane lowered engines into the test chamber-with most of the chamber almost entirely underground.
Cell 3 (west)
Smaller building with an altitude test chamber-with one of the largest internal cells for icing tests-to test the affects of ice on the performance on turbines and helicopter rotors. The engines were suspended from the roof of the test cell.
Cell 4 (whoo yaaah
) The largest cell on site built in 1965 as part of the Concorde programme to test supersonic jet engines. The test cell, unique in the world has a mass of pipes, blast doors and electronics. It is connected to the Air House by huge blue pipes and designed to simulate Concord’s flying conditions...Mach 2 (1522 mph) at 61,000ft up to a maximum wind speed of 2,000mph. The amount of energy to run the Air House at the required speed was too great for the sites own power station, so electricity had to be drawn from the National Grid and it could only be powered at night....knowing this you can’t help conjuring up thoughts of the local folks light bulbs dimming when the surge is sucked from the grid.
Number 9 exhauster
Pyestocks designers built the air house on a large scale but had not anticipated the phenomenal force required by cell 4-even with all 8 exhausts running suction was insufficient. So another exhauster was built directly next to Cell 4-as there are 8, this one was simply named Exhauster 9.
A little site history.....
In 1942 the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Turbine Division run by Hayne Constant moved its new facilities to Pyestock in Hampshire. There it merged with the Frank Whittle’s Power Jets design teams and the National Gas Turbine Establishment (NGTE) was created. During its lifetime the huge establishment tested, designed, developed and was an experimental centre for gas and jet turbines and engines for commercial engine companies.
NGTE was built on a former golf course in secluded Pyestock woodland surrounded by MoD land. Mounds of earth were sculptured to help reduce the noise from the engine testing. Its site was chosen as a turbine testing establishment as its activities were top secret and the surrounding woodland would also help dampen the noise. For over 50 years Pyestock lead the way for gas turbine development, with V Bomber, Harrier and Tornado engines tested on site. Every gas turbine installed in Royal Navy Ships was checked here, including the captured Soviet engines which were discreetly examined.
The site was decommissioned in 2000 and may eventually make way for a business park. Tesco’s having been trying to obtain planning permission (just when don’t they??? another council “gift” may grease the wheels I fear) for Europe’s largest distribution centre, but thankfully locals have objected to 24/7 use of 44 ton artics around the local roads, as a new road infrastructure would have to be built around the woodland. I did get rather worried last year when I was down there, the grass “road” of MoD land running up to the site had digger activity going on...I asked the workmen what they were doing and they said they were sorting out the drainage....then a local came along and I had a chat with him, he worked in construction and he said that the only reason he could see why they were doing such work in that particular place would be to sort out supplies for a new possible site in the future, so it may be in the pipeline, so to speak, that it’s nearer than we thought. So I hope the locals keep up the objections so we can all have some more time in Pye as there are still loads I haven’t seen.
So let’s have a look at some gorgeous pipage.....if anyone has a fisheye and can get down there they will surely be mad by the time they leave
Ive just put this shot in because there’s an interesting, well i think its quite interesting anyway, little feature. During my site recces around the perimeter fence i noticed that little 2ft high light green fence surrounding the entire site. I wondered what it could be, all sorts of strange things crossed my strange mind
as id never seen anything like it before, was it some sort of “acoustics barrier” but I thought it was far too small for that, maybe a rabbit proof fence, I even wondered was it some kind of electrified weird security device, as this was a highly secret site back in its day, especially when it was unravelling captured Soviet engines. So when I eventually got in I had to have a closer look at it and I read the words “Herpetosure” on the top of its rim.....painfully racking my brain I knew I had heard of this word before, then it came to me that herpetology was something to do with amphibians, well frogs and lizards sprung to mind first, so after a little googling I found the firm that makes them, and they are little fences to keep crested newts out of pye.....now that somehow warmed me! Come on, ahhhh....
Just love these massive blue tanks and huge pipes of the CECA air drying plant. The tanks are still filled with over 150 tonnes of tiny silica gel balls, like them little polystyrene packaging balls. The compressed air is forced through the tanks to remove any moisture before being circulated around the site back and back into the test cells and the air house....wota trip
Look its me, its me!....im just a shadow of my former self....how profound, naah not really...im very shallow me
A lovely blue sky and the early morning sunrise, pye was all mine for a few moments.....sigh
pretty shadows
The Air House exhaust pipes
Pipes take the compressed air rushing around the site
little padded jackets to help keep the pipes snug and cosy.....see there is something wrong with me, its not just the pipes that need a padded jacket
...and back to the CECA Plant
ah look group hug
.....
Come on inside, im full of billions of weeny gel balls....inviting???
Well that was my little tour around the lovely pipes of pye...
thanks for loookin peeps
