Visited with Fishbrain, Morse and AndrewB.
We were in London, and decided to meet up with AndrewB to check out Barking Power station. The station stands alongside a series of live substations and the surrounding grounds are now used by shipping / storage companies and the Dagenham outdoor market. We initially gained access to the East Switch House before making an attempt at the Control Room and Office Block building. Unfortunately it was the middle of the day, and there were workers present in the all of the yards surrounding the building so getting in was going to be a twat. We opted to sneak through the container yards from the back of the site, diving between the stacks and running across open sections of ground. However this came to no reward as we realised there was another yard lieing between us and the power station building, which meant scaling a noisy fence and potentially being rumbled by workers. So instead we made our way back round to the front of the building, and got into another yard for a more direct route, where we were forced to hide in a corner for 20 minutes or so from more workers. After the wait, they left and locked up the site, so we were finally into the building!
History:
Barking Power Station refers to a series of power stations located at former and current sites in East London, within the Borough of Barking and Dagenham. The original site, on the North bank of the River Thames on River Road, was home to the coal-fired Stations A (opened 1925), B (opened 1939) and C (opened 1954). These stations were decommissioned by the end of the 1980s and have since been demolished, leaving the Barking East 33kV Switch House, the Control Room and Office Block, and the interconnecting cable tunnels still intact.
In addition to these sites, a currently used gas-fired power station was constructed near Dagenham Dock in the early 1990s.
While exploring both buildings, we attempted to get down the cable tunnels. In the switch house we found they were sealed, and in the control room building we found some sealed and some we were able to get into, but they were sealed further in.
Barking East 33kV Switch House
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Control Room and Office Block
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Glad I got to see this. Thanks for looking!
We were in London, and decided to meet up with AndrewB to check out Barking Power station. The station stands alongside a series of live substations and the surrounding grounds are now used by shipping / storage companies and the Dagenham outdoor market. We initially gained access to the East Switch House before making an attempt at the Control Room and Office Block building. Unfortunately it was the middle of the day, and there were workers present in the all of the yards surrounding the building so getting in was going to be a twat. We opted to sneak through the container yards from the back of the site, diving between the stacks and running across open sections of ground. However this came to no reward as we realised there was another yard lieing between us and the power station building, which meant scaling a noisy fence and potentially being rumbled by workers. So instead we made our way back round to the front of the building, and got into another yard for a more direct route, where we were forced to hide in a corner for 20 minutes or so from more workers. After the wait, they left and locked up the site, so we were finally into the building!
History:
Barking Power Station refers to a series of power stations located at former and current sites in East London, within the Borough of Barking and Dagenham. The original site, on the North bank of the River Thames on River Road, was home to the coal-fired Stations A (opened 1925), B (opened 1939) and C (opened 1954). These stations were decommissioned by the end of the 1980s and have since been demolished, leaving the Barking East 33kV Switch House, the Control Room and Office Block, and the interconnecting cable tunnels still intact.
In addition to these sites, a currently used gas-fired power station was constructed near Dagenham Dock in the early 1990s.
While exploring both buildings, we attempted to get down the cable tunnels. In the switch house we found they were sealed, and in the control room building we found some sealed and some we were able to get into, but they were sealed further in.
Barking East 33kV Switch House
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Control Room and Office Block
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Glad I got to see this. Thanks for looking!
