Drakelow Power Station

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Drakelow Power Station was located two and a half miles south of Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England, next to the River Trent. Burton is most famous for its breweries, but was also recognised for what was its most distinguishable landmark, Drakelow Power Station.

The West Wing of Drakelow Hall

Drakelow C station on 26th November 2005, the day before the tall chimneys were demolished

The cooling towers of Drakelow power station were 360 feet (110 m) high.

The cooling towers; the final structures remain just hours before their demolition

1 Previous history and construction
2 Through the years
3 The end
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Previous history and construction

Drakelow Power Station was built on the site of Drakelowe Hall, a magnificent stately home on the south bank of the River Trent. Few sites chosen for building a new power station could have has such a distinguished history as the Drakelow Estate when it was earmarked for development in the early 1940s. This site is around 750 acres (3.0 km²) in size and is within close proximity to the main Leicester — Burton railway to the north and the Burton - Tamworth road to the south-east. Importantly, it was also close to the East Midlands Coal Fields.

28 generations of the Gresley family had considered the estate as nothing more than their ancestral home. It had appeared in the Domesday book and the family could trace its history back to the time of the Norse Vikings. The remains of the Elizabethan Hall occupied part of the site even after the Power Station was built. A book published in 1899, 'The Gresleys of Drakelowe', is the accepted history of the family.

By the 1940s, the estate was no longer owned by the Gresley family, but by Sir Clifford Gothard. A sale of land was agreed for a three phase development of electricity generation on the site, and by the time 'A' station was commissioned in 1955, with its capacity of 240MW, work was already starting on its larger 480MW sister, 'B' Station. The £23 Million project was considered a great technological advancement in its day. Rapid progress was being made with the development of larger boilers and generator units. 120MW units were planned for 'B' station, which was commissioned in 1959.

The third, final and largest stage of the build was then underway with the construction of 'C' station. Work began in 1962 and took two years to build. With 6 larger cooling towers and four generators, it dwarfed both 'A' and 'B' stations put together.

[edit] Through the years

Drakelow power station became home to a workforce of hundreds of people, had its own Football, Cricket and Rugby club and became part of the community by holding various charity events. Drakelow also proudly boasted a clean accident record. It also housed a popular nature trail.

The station itself did suffer one or two events in its time. A minor fire broke out at the station in the early 80's and part of 'C' station was flooded when the River Trent burst its banks in 2000. Overall however, the station flowed through a rather seamless life.

The Drakelow site's ownership changed hands on several occasions. It was sold to TXU,an American company, and then in the early 1990s, to Powergen. Powergen was then bought out by E.ON UK in 2001.

[edit] The end

'A' station was decommissioned in the mid 1980's and, with credit to its workers, 'B' station closed in 1993 after surpassing its designed life expectancy. The cooling towers, chimneys and boiler houses had disappeared by the end of 1998 leaving 'C' station to continue into the new millennium.

Rumours began to circulate in late 2002 that Drakelow 'C' was to be closed; a point that E-ON denied. However, in January 2003, E-ON announced that the station was to close, and on 31 March 2003, the station was decommissioned. It was mothballed soon after and left standing until October 2005. The demolition of the two boiler houses was then begun and on 27 November 2005 at 05.00 a.m. the two tall chimneys were demolished via explosives. By April 2006, the boiler house had been stripped down to bare metal, which on 27 April 2006 at 10.00 a.m. was also imploded.

The grand finale was left until 19 July 2006, with the scheduled demolition of the six remaining cooling towers. The six towers remained standing, even after their 11.00 p.m. blow down time, as a fault with the detonator was found; a disappointment for the thousands of spectators which had gathered. The new date was set to 20 September 2006 at 10.00 p.m., when the towers finally came down, though not without fault. One set of towers came down at 10.00, but the other three failed after rabbits had chewed through the detonation cord. At 10.50 however, the final set of towers came crashing down, ending the era of Drakelow Power Station.

On 16 October 2007 section 36 consent was granted to allow for the construction of a new 1220 MW CCGT gas power station at Drakelow.^[1]