Almost missed the boat on this one but thought you may like this as a bit of an update really.
Nicked from WIKI
The Ironbridge power stations (also known as the Buildwas power stations) refers to a series of two power stations that occupied a site on the banks of the River Severn at Buildwas in Shropshire, England. The Ironbridge B Power Station was operated by E.ON UK but the site is now owned by Uniper. The station stands near the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. Originally powered by coal, they were converted to use 100% biomass fuel.[1] Ironbridge B Power Station stopped generating electricity on 20 November 2015, with the decommissioning process continuing into 2017. The main phase of the 27-month demolition process began at 11:00 GMT on 6 December 2019, commencing with the razing of the four iconic cooling towers. This was to make space for over 1,000 homes, shops and other buildings.
The Explore
What a saga this turned out to be so I feel obliged to share the whole story.
I had been given some excellent info on this from Pretty Vacant so was feeling quite confident on the morning of our visit as we arrived early on site & started navigating through the darkness.
The access details proved good "in an opening", "up a flight of stairs" right up to the point we arrived at a cavernous drop at the corner of the building to transfer through from switch room to boiler room as this part of the immense structure appeared to be missing... but thats what u get for visiting mid demo!
A stretch & leap of faith over a whole lot of potential (dying on a pile of rubble) & we were in the main boiler house.
We spent a while scoping out, had a quick look at the Turbine hall then decided to head up as high as we can & work our way back down. Up at around 200ft we got some great views out the freshly cut access holes & external lift openings, the wind at these points was quite horrendous & I struggled to take this shot over the substation.
It was milling about on these upper floors that I heard a loud bang! nothing to worry about until I heard the distinct sound of voices under us.
The place is massive so it was difficult to asses the position of said voices, but with the addition of more banging we realised these were coming from the tirbine hall & were what we later discovered to be scafolders.
Ok situation check head back through boiler house the way we came in should work but it didnt take long to find the lower floors here were now flooded with demo crews & the hydraulic wrecker had started up outside too.
We found a nice hiding place at this point on top of a boiler & began the waiting game. This didnt last long, maybe half hour before we were both bored & didnt want to potentially be there till 5pm as we had a big weekend planned ahead.
We were well & truly trapped on the higher floors but slowly our confidence grew as we worked our way back down floors getting closer to the workers until we were in a good positioin to see their movements & look for potential exits.
The wind & general noise helped as we could move about freely without arousing suspicion, we were just hoping no one came up to the higher floors.
We grabbed what pictures we could through out all this so apologies if they are not the best.
Anyway I realised there was no chance of us exiting the south side of the building due to the amount of people, I also noted there were only 3 guys in the central area of the turbine hall & the far end bay was sort of separated by a wall (although this had large openings along its length), there was also a half open roller shutter on that side of the building although we knew this was leading out to where the demo crews were.
After going back up a few floors to scope out escape routes outside, it was noted that again mother nature had intervened & a haras fence had been blown over & was laying at a 45 deg angle on the sloping wooded hillside.
We decided to go for it & hot footed down into the end bay of the turbine hall, only pausing briefly at the bottom when we noticed a rack of hi viz jackets & hats & wondered if there was an easier option but realised this was no time for a plan change.
We got out without the scafolders noticing & a quick scan showed no one in view outside so we hastily went for the haras fence.
We made it.... about 10 ft before "oi you stop" & the guy driving the machine started blasting his horn!
Then it was just a case of run & hope for the best, the aforementioned haras laying at an angle proved slippier than I had anticipated, but we made it across this, jumped the wooden fence & sprinted up the hillside through the woods.
Now Im pretty fit so when I turned around all I could see was my mate 30ft behind with 2 guys in hi viz just behind him. They gave up though pretty much as soon as he was over the fence so we went on with our weekend with a reoccurring chuckle & a shortness of breath!
So far as the power plant itself its a pretty amazing place on a scale thats difficult to comprehend. Looking back at past posts a whole lot has gone but this is what remains.
Note the Aplant generator in the distance, this was running since our arrival powering lights on the lower levels
Thanks For Looking
Nicked from WIKI
The Ironbridge power stations (also known as the Buildwas power stations) refers to a series of two power stations that occupied a site on the banks of the River Severn at Buildwas in Shropshire, England. The Ironbridge B Power Station was operated by E.ON UK but the site is now owned by Uniper. The station stands near the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. Originally powered by coal, they were converted to use 100% biomass fuel.[1] Ironbridge B Power Station stopped generating electricity on 20 November 2015, with the decommissioning process continuing into 2017. The main phase of the 27-month demolition process began at 11:00 GMT on 6 December 2019, commencing with the razing of the four iconic cooling towers. This was to make space for over 1,000 homes, shops and other buildings.
The Explore
What a saga this turned out to be so I feel obliged to share the whole story.
I had been given some excellent info on this from Pretty Vacant so was feeling quite confident on the morning of our visit as we arrived early on site & started navigating through the darkness.
The access details proved good "in an opening", "up a flight of stairs" right up to the point we arrived at a cavernous drop at the corner of the building to transfer through from switch room to boiler room as this part of the immense structure appeared to be missing... but thats what u get for visiting mid demo!
A stretch & leap of faith over a whole lot of potential (dying on a pile of rubble) & we were in the main boiler house.
We spent a while scoping out, had a quick look at the Turbine hall then decided to head up as high as we can & work our way back down. Up at around 200ft we got some great views out the freshly cut access holes & external lift openings, the wind at these points was quite horrendous & I struggled to take this shot over the substation.
It was milling about on these upper floors that I heard a loud bang! nothing to worry about until I heard the distinct sound of voices under us.
The place is massive so it was difficult to asses the position of said voices, but with the addition of more banging we realised these were coming from the tirbine hall & were what we later discovered to be scafolders.
Ok situation check head back through boiler house the way we came in should work but it didnt take long to find the lower floors here were now flooded with demo crews & the hydraulic wrecker had started up outside too.
We found a nice hiding place at this point on top of a boiler & began the waiting game. This didnt last long, maybe half hour before we were both bored & didnt want to potentially be there till 5pm as we had a big weekend planned ahead.
We were well & truly trapped on the higher floors but slowly our confidence grew as we worked our way back down floors getting closer to the workers until we were in a good positioin to see their movements & look for potential exits.
The wind & general noise helped as we could move about freely without arousing suspicion, we were just hoping no one came up to the higher floors.
We grabbed what pictures we could through out all this so apologies if they are not the best.
Anyway I realised there was no chance of us exiting the south side of the building due to the amount of people, I also noted there were only 3 guys in the central area of the turbine hall & the far end bay was sort of separated by a wall (although this had large openings along its length), there was also a half open roller shutter on that side of the building although we knew this was leading out to where the demo crews were.
After going back up a few floors to scope out escape routes outside, it was noted that again mother nature had intervened & a haras fence had been blown over & was laying at a 45 deg angle on the sloping wooded hillside.
We decided to go for it & hot footed down into the end bay of the turbine hall, only pausing briefly at the bottom when we noticed a rack of hi viz jackets & hats & wondered if there was an easier option but realised this was no time for a plan change.
We got out without the scafolders noticing & a quick scan showed no one in view outside so we hastily went for the haras fence.
We made it.... about 10 ft before "oi you stop" & the guy driving the machine started blasting his horn!
Then it was just a case of run & hope for the best, the aforementioned haras laying at an angle proved slippier than I had anticipated, but we made it across this, jumped the wooden fence & sprinted up the hillside through the woods.
Now Im pretty fit so when I turned around all I could see was my mate 30ft behind with 2 guys in hi viz just behind him. They gave up though pretty much as soon as he was over the fence so we went on with our weekend with a reoccurring chuckle & a shortness of breath!
So far as the power plant itself its a pretty amazing place on a scale thats difficult to comprehend. Looking back at past posts a whole lot has gone but this is what remains.
Note the Aplant generator in the distance, this was running since our arrival powering lights on the lower levels
Thanks For Looking
