More information : A spot-listing request has been made in respect of the group of 5 cooling towers which were constructed to serve the Willington 'A' and 'B' electricity generating stations sited in the Trent Valley in Derbyshire. They are the surviving elements of the 2 power stations, the other components of which have been demolished. The site has been the subject of an outline planning permission for a large housing development of 1,000 homes, which will necessitate the demolition of the towers. The application has not yet been approved, and is awaiting a Ministerial decision.
The cooling towers at Willington were components of the 2 Willington Power stations developed between 1954 and 1960, and power generation continued on the site until March 1998. The 2 power stations formed a significant part of the post- War development of the National Grid, the concept of which, to replace small 'Town' generating stations with purpose-built large capacity stations linked together to provide electricity wherever it was needed, had been developed in the 1920's. The designs for station 'A' were developed by the consulting engineers Ewbank and Partners, who also oversaw its construction and commissioning. The 2 stations were coal powered, and were served by 5 cooling towers, which took their water from the nearby River Trent. The closure of the site began in 1993, the 'A' station being closed in May 1995 and the final generating unit of station 'B' was closed in March 1999. Demolition began soon afterwards and had been substantially completed by the end of 2003, apart from the 5 cooling towers, which remain standing to this day.
The cooling towers at Willington are natural draught hyperbolic towers, and are constructed of concrete. They are 300ft high and have diameters of 145 ft at the top, 122ft at the throat and 218 ft at the base. They were built in 2 phases, 2 towers for station 'A' and then 3 for station `B', the latter set at right angles to the north of the original pair. Each tower had an effective cooling surface of 858,000 square feet. They are of a standard design for their period, which was based on European designs of the 1930's. The cooling tower, as its name suggests, performs the function of cooling the exhaust vapour of the generating turbines with water and returning the water to the river from whence it was drawn. In operation, water is piped into the lower portion of the cooling tower into a complex network of pipes or troughs ending with sprinklers. A fine mist of water is then sprayed on to a timber or asbestos lattice of staging and screens filling the lower 4-5m of the tower, with the water being cooled via natural evaporation aided by air being drawn upwards by the tower above. Any water droplets carried by this updraft are intercepted by a layer of louvers positioned above the sprinklers. As part of the de-commissioning process, these internal elements of the cooling towers are removed from the concrete tower shell. The cooling towers now stand as the surviving elements of the 2 power stations, and are highly visible structures in the flat landscape of the Trent valley.
Cooling towers are highly recognisable and almost emblematic components of electricity generating stations, usually built in clusters at large stations, as in this instance, and sited close to a major river which provide abundant supplies of water for cooling. They are standard components of power generation sites, although, like industrial chimneys, they vary in size and profile. In 1965, three cooling towers at the Ferrybridge power station in Yorkshire collapsed in high winds, and as a result of this incident, the condition of such structures was henceforth closely monitored and a British Standard was introduced for future design and construction.
Consideration of the issue of special interest of cooling towers should take into account their architectural and /or technical importance as structures, together with their contribution to the special architectural or historic interest which may be assigned to a power generating site of the period. Their prominence and visibility in the wider landscape may also be an attribute which influences the claim to special interest.
Cooling towers of this period are standard components of electricity generating stations throughout England, and their design is based upon the earliest European designs of the 1930's. Whilst they are highly visible within the landscape, and are carefully shaped and proportioned, their technological and structural engineering characteristics are not considered to be distinctive, or of special architectural or historic interest. The survey of the electricity industry undertaken for the Monuments Protection Programme in 1995 identified over 500 cooling towers, the great majority dating to the 1960's period of expansion of the National Grid. Significant numbers of cooling towers survive on electricity generating sites throughout England, including other sites within the Trent Valley The cooling towers at Willington belong to this large body of survivals dating to the 1960's, and thus are neither rare, nor of distinctive technological or structural significance in a national context. They are surviving components of former power generation sites where all other primary components have been demolished. Thus their functional context and their significance as components of power station complexes has been lost.
The group of 5 electricity generating station cooling towers at Willington in Derbyshire are not of special architectural or historic interest in a national context, and should not be added to the Statutory List. (1) |