Report - Thorpe Marsh Power Station, near Doncaster, Jul 2011

[Carbonel]

Report is based on 3 visits to Thorpe Marsh with Lance Uppercut over the last few months. Already a fair bit of history on other reports, so I'll keep it brief:

Thorpe Marsh Power Station was officially opened in 1967. The site was chosen because it satisfied four requirements:-

• An adequate source of cooling water was available (the River Don)
• The substrata was capable of supporting heavy loads
• Good road and rail access
• There was a sufficient area available for ash deposition

The installation had two generators, each capable of producing 500 megawatts. Each unit had a pulverised coal fired steam raising boiler. There were three cooling towers to each boiler. Because of silt in the River Don, three settling ponds were provided between the river pump house and the cooling water system. A total of approximately 100 tons of ash per hour was produced and this was disposed of on the station ash fields. (BBC)

Closure - Initially operated by the Central Electricity Generating Board, the station was operated by National Power following privatisation in 1990. The station closed a few years later in 1994. The 45 acre site was acquired by Able UK in 1995. Much of the station has been demolished and now only its six cooling towers (each 340 ft (100 m) high and 260 ft (79 m) in diameter at the base), two ash slurry hoppers, railway sidings and the station's large adjacent electricity switching station still remain. (Wikipedia)

Sadly I have to report the disappearance of the digger since our second trip, and the less welcome appearance of pikeys hunting through the rubble.

Thanks for looking,

Carbonel