Hello there folks
I got a bit fed up with things lately and needed a break from Essex so headed “up north of the Watford Gap” to the lovely lumpy scenery of the midlands. Staying in flat Essex for the last 10 years I’ve forgotten what it’s like to drive around the amazing hills and valleys, such as the A6 from Derby to Manchester....what a road, so much to see, the World Heritage Site of the Derwent Valley with its spectacular mills saved from demolition really cheered me up, for once the authorities had realised the importance of our industrial heritage and actually done something about it...shocking a!
Luckily the weather was better than forecasted so I had a good week of very little rain so mooched around a few of the places that are more local to you lucky dudes living up there.... I could have stayed up there much longer, I didn’t want to come back as it was really good to get away, but sadly reality has to kick in sometime and got shit to do so I had to head back. I’m hoping to have a little return trip soon as Id seen some places that were new to me and just begged a look in but didn’t get the time, it’s amazing how quick the days go when you’re on a mission and you’re in one of the slowest motors ever which drinks oil like its petrol, I had to take it easy if I didn’t want to blow the tiny pistons through the weeny bonnet.
So he’s the first pics from me mini-midland trip....hope you like em as much as I did taking em
A bit of background......
The High Mareham Power Station was built in 1959 west of the River Trent as an East Midlands coal-fired power station. It was decommissioned in 2003 after 45 years in service, 119 people lost their jobs. The station’s chimneys were demolished in late 2004 with its 150 m high boiler house knocked down in late 2006-leaving just its 5 cooling towers standing. These were left untouched for several years as a rare species of bird of prey made them home....until their fate was sealed at 10am 15th July 2012
Operators: Central Electricity Generating Board (1959-1990)
Powergen (1990-2002) and E.ON UK (2002-2003)
Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer waste heat into the atmosphere with the evaporation of water. These 5 at High Mareham were called “hyperboloid towers” which used the “natural draft wet cooling method” ....hyperboloid structures are architectural structures designed with hyperbolic geometry-a mathematical formula for strength.
From a distance.....
I invested in a sat nav at last as i usually have shed loads for google maps blowing about the car and spend ages hunting for the rite ones....maybe if i cleaned out the motor just the once it wud of helped
Getting nearer...
The River Trent had flooded the local fields....i was taking this shot when a woman walking her dog came up and asked was i taking some photos before they were blown up on Sunday....it was Thursday so i just had to get in and see wot its like being close up to the cooling towers
So i had a mooch about the local area to try and find a way nearer to them....
Getting a bit closer....then i heard the sound of diggers and trucks moving about, shouting, allsorts was going on, so i left the rear of the site and thought I’d do something rather out of character, it was a very strange move for me, I felt uncomfortable about, in fact I didn’t really know how to do it,it was going against the grain....but I forced myself to do it as I was desperate to see inside and i didn’t think I’d have a hope in hell at getting in with all that action going on.
Ignoring all my natural instincts i approached the main gate and asked the sec if i could take some shots before they blew it up on Sunday. Then guess wot???? Yeah that’s rite he said “No cause a health and safety “.....so I thought i will have to find another way. I noticed the workers were casually mooching about, no PPE for legionnaires etc so I weighed it up ok, left my karma at the fence, (I had been good lately....freed a pigeon from some fishing wire early, it all counts) and slipped in......
Lets have a closer look at them locks.....
A nice little selection.....
Ah haaa.....Alan partridge styleee (not access info as there’s no longer any place to accessbut free free to remove more of my pics sk)
My first time this close up to some cooling towers....i could almost feel their intense size....it was freaky!
nice bit of wangle....luv it
There were actually 5 towers one is hiding
My first look into the “bowels” of the beast....i knew sec were hanging about so i wanted to get inside and out of view asap
When i got inside i was stunned by the sheer scale of the towers, it was quite amazing
As well as their overpowering size another thing i wasn’t expecting was the acoustics of the towers....totally blew me away! I heard a bird way up high circling above the tower’s rim before settling on its edge, it was squawking and the noise echoed like a siren and bellowed all around the curved sides....it was something I’d never seen or heard before, very surreal, no f@*kin great it was!!!
Inside the middle of the tower was a large concrete waterfall which tons of water would have gushed out the holes creating a large surface area in the reservoir below, cooling the heated water.
The triangular positioned stilts that the giant towers stood on were wrapped in protective coverings to keep the explosives dry
Several cherry pickers were used to plant explosives inside the inner walls
Only a few legs hadn’t yet been plugged with explosives yet
A massive concrete pipe took the water to the outlet
The explosives are drilled and plugged into its curved walls....i felt quite emotional about this....i don’t mind admitting I’m a bloody freak. Infact i got rather attached to these 5 guys on my short visit...so much so that i didn’t want to go back 3 days later to see them blown up, we’ve all seen stuff blown up on tv before, its all over in a few seconds, theres not much to see, and i would be pissed im sure....its probably got something to do with that since i was a kid when I’ve passed cooling towers on the M1 up to Derby i always wondered what they would be like close up, and today i found out....somehow it didn’t feel right for me to watch them collapse
The green string links the charges
When i went around to the front main gate to speak to sec i asked why they were demolishing them and he said that they are full of cracks and are unsafe in strong winds and as a few houses and a little pub are only a few hundred yards away from them they had to go
My final shot before i left them to their fate.....they even looked different after the evening sun had stopped shinning and warming them up, they looked somewhat cold as if they knew it wouldn’t be long. Right that’s it I’m off for a bloody good cry now
I got a bit fed up with things lately and needed a break from Essex so headed “up north of the Watford Gap” to the lovely lumpy scenery of the midlands. Staying in flat Essex for the last 10 years I’ve forgotten what it’s like to drive around the amazing hills and valleys, such as the A6 from Derby to Manchester....what a road, so much to see, the World Heritage Site of the Derwent Valley with its spectacular mills saved from demolition really cheered me up, for once the authorities had realised the importance of our industrial heritage and actually done something about it...shocking a!
Luckily the weather was better than forecasted so I had a good week of very little rain so mooched around a few of the places that are more local to you lucky dudes living up there.... I could have stayed up there much longer, I didn’t want to come back as it was really good to get away, but sadly reality has to kick in sometime and got shit to do so I had to head back. I’m hoping to have a little return trip soon as Id seen some places that were new to me and just begged a look in but didn’t get the time, it’s amazing how quick the days go when you’re on a mission and you’re in one of the slowest motors ever which drinks oil like its petrol, I had to take it easy if I didn’t want to blow the tiny pistons through the weeny bonnet.
So he’s the first pics from me mini-midland trip....hope you like em as much as I did taking em
A bit of background......
The High Mareham Power Station was built in 1959 west of the River Trent as an East Midlands coal-fired power station. It was decommissioned in 2003 after 45 years in service, 119 people lost their jobs. The station’s chimneys were demolished in late 2004 with its 150 m high boiler house knocked down in late 2006-leaving just its 5 cooling towers standing. These were left untouched for several years as a rare species of bird of prey made them home....until their fate was sealed at 10am 15th July 2012
Operators: Central Electricity Generating Board (1959-1990)
Powergen (1990-2002) and E.ON UK (2002-2003)
Cooling towers are heat removal devices used to transfer waste heat into the atmosphere with the evaporation of water. These 5 at High Mareham were called “hyperboloid towers” which used the “natural draft wet cooling method” ....hyperboloid structures are architectural structures designed with hyperbolic geometry-a mathematical formula for strength.
From a distance.....
I invested in a sat nav at last as i usually have shed loads for google maps blowing about the car and spend ages hunting for the rite ones....maybe if i cleaned out the motor just the once it wud of helped
Getting nearer...
The River Trent had flooded the local fields....i was taking this shot when a woman walking her dog came up and asked was i taking some photos before they were blown up on Sunday....it was Thursday so i just had to get in and see wot its like being close up to the cooling towers
So i had a mooch about the local area to try and find a way nearer to them....
Getting a bit closer....then i heard the sound of diggers and trucks moving about, shouting, allsorts was going on, so i left the rear of the site and thought I’d do something rather out of character, it was a very strange move for me, I felt uncomfortable about, in fact I didn’t really know how to do it,
it was going against the grain....but I forced myself to do it as I was desperate to see inside and i didn’t think I’d have a hope in hell at getting in with all that action going on.Ignoring all my natural instincts i approached the main gate and asked the sec if i could take some shots before they blew it up on Sunday. Then guess wot???? Yeah that’s rite he said “No cause a health and safety “.....so I thought i will have to find another way. I noticed the workers were casually mooching about, no PPE for legionnaires etc so I weighed it up ok, left my karma at the fence, (I had been good lately....freed a pigeon from some fishing wire early, it all counts) and slipped in......
Lets have a closer look at them locks.....
A nice little selection.....
Ah haaa.....Alan partridge styleee (not access info as there’s no longer any place to access
but free free to remove more of my pics sk)
My first time this close up to some cooling towers....i could almost feel their intense size....it was freaky!
nice bit of wangle....luv it
There were actually 5 towers one is hiding
My first look into the “bowels” of the beast....i knew sec were hanging about so i wanted to get inside and out of view asap
When i got inside i was stunned by the sheer scale of the towers, it was quite amazing
As well as their overpowering size another thing i wasn’t expecting was the acoustics of the towers....totally blew me away! I heard a bird way up high circling above the tower’s rim before settling on its edge, it was squawking and the noise echoed like a siren and bellowed all around the curved sides....it was something I’d never seen or heard before, very surreal, no f@*kin great it was!!!
Inside the middle of the tower was a large concrete waterfall which tons of water would have gushed out the holes creating a large surface area in the reservoir below, cooling the heated water.
The triangular positioned stilts that the giant towers stood on were wrapped in protective coverings to keep the explosives dry
Several cherry pickers were used to plant explosives inside the inner walls
Only a few legs hadn’t yet been plugged with explosives yet
A massive concrete pipe took the water to the outlet
The explosives are drilled and plugged into its curved walls....i felt quite emotional about this....i don’t mind admitting I’m a bloody freak. Infact i got rather attached to these 5 guys on my short visit...so much so that i didn’t want to go back 3 days later to see them blown up, we’ve all seen stuff blown up on tv before, its all over in a few seconds, theres not much to see, and i would be pissed im sure....its probably got something to do with that since i was a kid when I’ve passed cooling towers on the M1 up to Derby i always wondered what they would be like close up, and today i found out....somehow it didn’t feel right for me to watch them collapse
The green string links the charges
When i went around to the front main gate to speak to sec i asked why they were demolishing them and he said that they are full of cracks and are unsafe in strong winds and as a few houses and a little pub are only a few hundred yards away from them they had to go
My final shot before i left them to their fate.....they even looked different after the evening sun had stopped shinning and warming them up, they looked somewhat cold as if they knew it wouldn’t be long. Right that’s it I’m off for a bloody good cry now
