The story of Greenwich Power stations and the generation electricity in the Borough reflects the national – and indeed international history of the industry, in Deptford we had the very first installation which we would recognize as a power station. This was followed by others, private and local authority owned and with some very innovative schemes. They came and they went and today we continue with new forms of the electricity generation. It should also be noted that before the first power station was built that we already had in the borough two very large and innovative electrical engineering factories.[1]
To begin slightly before the beginning. It is hard for us to be able to consider a
world where we do not have instant access to it for now but it was only in the
1880s that too small installations were set up in Central London, one in Bond
Street and one in Holborn but they were
small and provided lighting to a couple of buildings. There had also
been a short lived water powered municipal lighting scheme at Godalming in
Surrey – installed by Siemens
The Siemens works on the Charlton borders of
Woolwich dated from the 1860s to make telegraph cables. Up they were however increasingly aware of
the need for an electrical apparatus and this had become a great interest of
William Siemens himself[2]. One 17 year old school leaver who they took
on in the research department was called Sebastian de Ferranti.[3] Among the many problems which needed to be solved
if electrify was to be used more generally was for cables to be designed
suitable for it for electrical transmission and also whether current should be
direct or alternating
One of the experimental lighting schemes was in the
Grosvenor Gallery in New Bond Street. It
was decided to build a permanent generating station there using and Siemens
equipment. It was also decide employ an
engineer and a 21 year old Sebastian di Ferrranti was recruited and took charge
of the station. He replaced some of the
Siemens equipment with that of his own design and in three years was supplying
premises around Regents Park and Knightsbridge.
It was realised that this could be done on a larger scale but that it
was not good idea to have the generating station in Central London
The London Electric Supply Corporation Limited was
set up and a site was identified in Deptford in The Stowage. This fronted on
the Thames next to the General Steam Navigation works in Deptford Creek, on the
site of part of the East India Company's old shipbuilding yard. Here coal could he delivered via the river,
which could also be used as a cooling medium.
The station was
‘on a scale undreamed of and ... a leap
into the technical unknown’. Compared with the existing electrical
installations this was of immense size as also was the area they intended to
supply. Ferranti believed that they must
supply alternating current and use transformers which were then a source of
great controversy[4].
Ferranti designed everything including the huge generator engines and the
building itself, Substations were also designed and set up.[5] From
the start the railway companies were involved and there were sand some of the
director’s work in fact railway directors on the board. This enabled cables to
be laid along railway tracks for their route into Central London.
One of the problems was for a design of cable which
could carry the electrical load and it appeared that Gutta Percha was not a
suitable insulator. Ferranti used brown paper sheet as his insulator the use of
which persisted for many years.[6] It opened in 1891.
At first things did not go well and the area of
supply was changed by the Board of Trade which had issues about competition.
There was a fire and new technologies still being tested needed adjustment. Deptford Power station was however opened although
in 1900 the station had to be shut down one it was renovated. Commercially it was a failure generating more
power than could be sold. [7]
In the long term Deptford Power station was a great
success – showing the world what could be done. It continued in use but was not
profitable until the 1920s. Ferranti’s Station was eventually decommissioned in
1957, and then demolished.
All that remains is a small substation building in Greenwich
High Road, the date of which is not clear. Over the door is ‘LESC’ – the one reminder
of the fist power station.[8]
It didn’t take long the idea of a centralized power
station to get around and – within the next ten years four major power stations
were built in Greenwich and WoolwIch
WoolwIch Power Station
Though the Deptford station had intended to supply
Woolwich, in 1890 before this could happen a Woolwich District Electric Light Company
was set up. The 1895 they purchased a site at Roff’s Wharf next to Globe Lane
and a small power station was built. Street
lighting in Woolwich began in 1898. This
works was bought by Woolwich Borough Council in 1903 and greatly expanded by
them. This was all built by direct
labour, the only major power station be so built
The WoolwIch power station grew and grew and by 1912
was enlarged with a new turbine hall to also supply Bexley and Erith. A new boiler
house followed as the Council bought the rest of Roff’s Wharf. Cooling water was supplied by a 200 foot
tunnel under the river. In the 1930s the riverfront wall was rebuilt along with
a new concrete jetty. This power station was described as “notably efficient”
and from 1934 was a “selected” station by the Central Electricity Board and
supplied to the grid. Following nationalisation in 1948 it was managed by the
British Electricity Authority and more was added. In deference to its location
external features were in an art deco style. However time was running at this
extremely successful power station and in 1976 one chimney was demolished and
the entire power station demolished in 1979.[9]
What remains is the river wall and jetty, but the
site is currently under intensive redevelopment. One reminder of the power
station which remains is in Dog Yard in Woolwich where a 1932 Woolwich Council
Electricity Department substation still stands.
[10]
Greenwich was
not far behind WoolwIch and by 1897 another power station was planned.
Blackwall
Point. Power Station.
In 1900 The Blackheath and Greenwich District
Electric Light Company Limited, began work on a generating station. This was a
difficult situation because The London Electric Supply Corporation had
legal power to supply alternating current in Greenwich. The new station
therefore had to plan for direct current to Greenwich itself but alternating
current in the rest of the local area – and the local authority wanted them to
supply in as wide a local area as possible.
Also a local tram company was hoping for a supply from them. The area
that this company was to supply covered 17 square miles with a population of
250,000.
And the site was acquired on the riverside on the Greenwich
Peninsula. This had been part of Frank
Hill’s Chemical Works and was being sold following his death. It was not particularly near Blackwall Point. the site today is difficult to identify the
cause of radical changes to the road layout in the area but it was on the river
side on what was Riverway - - which extended from the Pilot Inn to the river –
there is now a block of flats on the site.
A concrete pier was also built there so collier ships could unload. There were however some problems in building
is the structure on the march and the required extremely deep foundations and
thus the building was constructed on piles
White Hart Road depot. Meanwhile in what was still a separate local
government area at Plumstead something even more revolutionary was being
planned.
Plumstead was separate from Woolwich until the late
1890s but were aware they were about to be swallowed up. In that period street
lighting – and its cost was a big issue to local authorities and another issue
was how to deal with rubbish. Why not put the two problems together and build a
works where rubbish could be burnt to generate electricity? Plumstead Vestry began to investigate building
its own waste burning power station which would save money and provide proper,
well paid jobs. It was one of the
earliest local authorities to do so. They appointed an Engineer-Surveyor –
Frank Sumner – and he was to design and build the new station.[18]
The scheme was barely agreed when Plumstead Vestry went out of existence but
the new Woolwich Borough Council continued with it but – with their big works going
ahead in Globe Lane –Plumstead got rather forgotten. The station was however built and opened in
1903, rubbish was delivered and burnt and electricity generated. But not for
long
Electricity
ceased to be generated at Plumstead in 1923 but they kept on burning the
rubbish. They did other things too –
from the start they had included a plant to manufacture road making materials
and bricks from the unburnt waste.
. Woolwich was proud of its local
housing build with Council made bricks.
As time went on other of the more unmentionable aspects of Borough life
opened on the White Hart Road site – disinfection, special cleansing, and a
laundry for foul bedding. Then there were also pig sties on site and as late as
1953 the Woolwich Tenants Handbook gives instructions about using the bins
provided for food scraps. Waste
incineration ended in 1965 and the building was used for storage. The waste went to landfill.[19]
The building is now listed. The report from what was then English
Heritage notes its complex plan, its elaborate interiors and the integrity of
its design. This very very large and grand building is in an obscure corner of
the borough and very few will know about it. At the moment it is in use by
Crossrail and it is planned to put it into community
The fourth power station from the early days of
generation may be the best known as it stands on the Greenwich riverside right
next to the grand and famous Royal Hospital.
It was the “largest single building erected by the
early London County Council and was a manifest symbol of the Progressives
policy of municipalisation’. From the 1890s London County Council had been
buying up private tramways and in 1900 an Act was passed allowing
electrification. It was therefore decided to build generating stations to
supple the power to the trams. In 1901 the station was built on the site of the
existing horse tramway station. It was
designed to have capacity supply all of London’s tramway system and when built
was one of the country’s largest power stations. It was designed in-house by
J.J.Rider the Tramways Electrical Engineer and fitted out by A.L.C.Fell Chief
Officer of Tramways and an electrical engineer. It is an early example of a
steel framed building[20]. The frame is however
masked by brickwork giving it a ‘dark and gothic looking exterior’.[21]
The coaling
pier, which still stands, was designed separately by Maurice Fitzmaurice London
County Council Chief Engineer. There was some disagreement with the Astronomer
Royal and the most southern of the four chimneys were kept shorter, although in
the 1970s they were all lowered to the same height. In the 1920s F end a massive white concrete
bunker for coal was added on the wall which adjoins the Trinity arms house I am
told that this is the helps the acres stakes a concert of the joining gardens. In
the 1970s the coal burning and steam turbo alternators were replaced with 8 gas
turbine alternators burning oil and modified for either gas or oil. [22] It has since been
refitted again in the early 21st century and another refit has since been
considered.
For many years it provided a back up to the
Chelsea Generating Station, but since that has been taken out of use it
provides back up at peak hour for the underground system and for emergency
station lighting. I am told that at 4:00 every afternoon residents can see the
station beginning to fire up. The
magnificent jetty remains despite, I understand, being structurally unsound.
It is understood that it would be more expensive
to build a new station on a green field site outside London than to continue
with this venerable building. Because of its position in ‘Royal Greenwich’ it
comes in for a great deal of criticism from those who think it is inappropriate
in that location. However it has great architecture integrity and remains –
possibly the oldest power station in Europe still functioning for its original
purpose (well roughly) and on its original site.[23]
Arsenal
A generating station was built in 1895 within the
Arsenal complex and for their use.[24] This was sited on the
riverside and is now replaced by a block of modern flats – the very last block
at the east end of Cadogan Road.
This then was the situation with power generation
in Greenwich and Woolwich in the really 20th. It was not to remain so small very long.
Deptford West. Deptford was the first to be expanded with the building of
Deptford West. Ferranti’s power station
remained now called Deptford East. It is
described as ‘the first giant power station of the modern era’. By this time
the time it was in the hands of the London Power Company and the new station
was designed by their engineer Leonard Pearce. Its architectural style was
copied elsewhere - most notably at Battersea.
They had their own fleet of collier ships.[25]
Deptford West closed in 1983 and was demolished in
the 1990s. The site is now all modern housing, There is no plaque, no mention
of Ferranti, and none of the street names mention him nor any indication of
what was here. All that is left is the
enormous jetty, cut off from the land, covered in ‘danger’ notices and
derelict.
Blackwall Point power station was rebuilt in the early 1950s and designed to use pulverised
fuel in order to eliminate waste. A coal crushing plant was therefore included
in the site. This power station closed down in 1981.[26] The power station had been built with some
facilities on both sides of Riverway and some of these buildings remained for
many years after the main part of the power station had been demolished –
mainly because they accommodated the PLA radar scanner. They can be seen most famously in the 1994
Blur video of Park Life.[27] The coaling jetty remains and is currently a
gardening and allmotment centre, having most recently housed a theatre for one
of the developers.
So – around 1970 all of these power plants would
have been in full production – Deptford, Greenwich, Blackwall Point, Woolwich
and whatever went on in the Arsenal.
Across the river on the north bank were more – Brunswick Wharf, West
Ham. By 1990 they were all – except for
Greenwich – all gone.
Methods of raising power were changing. In 1994 SELCHP was opened in South
Bermondsey. Although outside the Borough, Greenwich Council is a partner in
this waste incinerator which also powers a district heating scheme and sells
power to the grid. At the time this was built it was hailed as revolutionary –
although, of course, the ideas are the same as those which were embodied in the
White Hart Road destructor in 1902. It
was however an indication of the way that things were to develop.[28]
As new estates were buiolt by developers in the
1990s and 2000s Greenwich Council increasingly asked for power generation to be
sustainable. Greenwich Millennium
Village, for example, was required to have an internal Combined Heat and Power
system.[29]
Currently a low carbon energy centre is being
built on the Greenwich Peninsula. It claims that it is ‘responding to a cross-party drive to
increase the use of Combined Heat & Power across the UK and to realize a
vision of decentralized energy power generation in London.’ Its shiny new
“stack tower’ is designed as a ‘sculptural landmark’,.[30]
We shall see.
[1] Siemens and Johnson and Phillips
[2] Survey of Woolwich
[3] Scott. Siemens Brothers.ie
[4] Cochrane. Cradle of Power
[5] Pendroche. London’s Lost Power Stations and Gas Works.
[6] Cochrane
[7] Cochrane
[8] Cheffins. Early Street Lighting in Greenwich. The LESC Building. Industrial Heritage 34
[9] Survey of Woolwich
[10] Survey of WoolwIch
[11] This site hasn’t been identified. There are currently two sub-stations in Westcombe-Hill but neither would appear to date from 1900
[12] Site not identified.
[13] At the back of Blackheath Concert Halls in Blackheath Park, there remains what is clearly a large electrical substation and I assume that this is “Concert Hall”.
[14] This tramway dating from the 1880s-line between Greenwich and Catford. It was taken over by the London County Council as early as 1906
[15] The Engineer 1900. Reproduced http://greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/the-first-power-station-on-peninsula.html
[16] Kentish mercury 1911. A series of reports on an the inquiry and inquest. One of the dead was the boiler inspector who was on site because of complaints about a crack.
[17] Co-partnership Journal.1911
[18] I have to thank Dave Ramsay who has made a special study of Frank Sumner’s work in Plumstead. Some of his notes have been published on the Greenwich industrial History blog page. I am not aware that any of this material has been otherwise published although I have produced popular articles on the subject for Bygone Kent and Greenwich Weekender
[19] Jefferson. The WoolwIch Story. WoolwIch Tenants Handbook. In addition material comes from more notes from Dave Ramsey and reminiscence material from workers on site.
[20] Guillery. Greenwich Generating Station London’s Industrial Archaeology 7
[21] Pendroche
[22] Guillery,
[23]Various discussions and meetings over the last 15 years with the Council and TfL on the future of the power station.
[24] Survey of Woolwich. This is described as ‘Central Power Station’ – a phrase whjich makes me think there were others. It would seem reasonable that a factory the size of the Arsenal should have several.
[25] Pedroche
[26] Pedroche
[27] The power station elements are towards the end of the video – red brick and blue fencing. The cottages are still in place, but the whole location is now completely covered in flats and very difficultl to work out where the filming took place.
[28]
www.selchp.com/
[29] Rpeot on this system prepared for English Partnerships 2014
[30] http://www.pinnaclepower.co.uk/case-studies/greenwich-peninsula-district-energy/
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