Introduction
This site has been around for years, I was very surprised when I found out it had been disused since the seventies, it has fared very well. It has been posted numerous times before but became quite popular again last year and decided to take a look with @Wastelandr. He had visited the site earlier in the year with KP but was happy to go again to show me around and have a good catch-up.
Information & History
A series of coal-fired power stations were constructed in Barking during the early to mid 20th century to supply electricity to the growing population of Essex and the surrounding areas. The riverside locations were chosen as coal could easily be delivered by rail and via the Thames.
Three main power stations were built as part of the plans and were simply named A, B & C. The A station was commissioned in 1925 and was capable of producing 600 MW of power. The site featured 8 Parsons turbo-generators and 22 boilers. Once commissioned, it was the largest power station in Britain to have been built as a complete station at one time. The station was modernised during the 1950s and 60s with boilers being converted to oil-firing. The station closed just a few years later in 1969.
Barking B was commissioned in 1933 due to increasing power demand and operated to its full capacity for the first time six years later. The capacity of B was 303 MW by 4 B.T.H turbo-generators. The station had 16 B&W chain grate boilers which were housed across two buildings. The power station was transferred to the London Division of the British Electricity Authority when the British electricity industry was nationalised in 1948. The station closed in 1976 following rising costs and environmental legislation.
Barking C was completed in 1954 and was opened by the British Electricity Authority. The station had a capacity of 225 MW provided by three B.T.H. generating sets. The boiler house contained 6 B&W boilers which were later converted to oil-firing. The station was the last one of the three to be decommissioned, with it closing in 1981.
Most of the station’s buildings have been demolished with just a few remnants left, such as the control room/substation building in this report. Next door is another control room building which funnily enough had an official tour and art exhibition hosted there a few months back which I had no idea about, it wasn’t until Wastelandr mentioned it just after we went that I knew about it. That building also looked interesting, it has no equipment remaining but the tiled walls and staircases are nice.
When doing my research, I couldn’t quite make out the location of the main power station site which had been demolished in relation to the substation/control room building, maybe I am just slow, but to help others, once I figured it out I made a diagram. The top image is the A/B power station in action in 1946, and the bottom image is Google 3D Satellite from a couple of years ago from roughly the same viewpoint. I have circled the control room building in red on each. It is quite difficult to make out the building on the old image, so you may have to zoom in:
The site today is an unusual mix of wasteland, thousands of new low-rise apartment blocks and an array of smaller power-related buildings such as internal and external substations. A new overground station has been recently constructed to connect the new Barking Riverside residents to the main rail network via Barking. The regeneration in this area is still underway and it is estimated to house 26,000 people by the time the project is completed in the 2030s.
The Explore
This was a fantastic day out. Myself and Wastelandr met at Lakeside shopping centre as a halfway point, had some great chicken wings from M&S (a wasp was trying to get a bite of mine) then we headed straight to Barking. The previous way Wastelandr tried getting onto the site was sealed so we felt a bit less than optimistic initially, but we found an alternative way onto the site. We spent around three hours exploring the substation and control room building and very much enjoyed it. As I mentioned earlier, Wastelandr had already done it but was keen to get some more shots so it was enjoyed by all. We were followed up the road a bit by some random guy following us pretty closely which seemed a bit sus, but turned out to be nothing haha. It is such a strange area with the new flats and then the barren wasteland and industrial remains which surround it, definitely ‘liminal’ vibes for sure.
Photos
No externals unfortunately (I think I may have actually taken a couple on Wastelandr’s camera as he had a more suitable lens on at the time but I don’t think I ever asked him to send them to me) so straight into the best bit, the 1930s control room:
Some finer details:
A couple of portraits:
CONTINUED…
This site has been around for years, I was very surprised when I found out it had been disused since the seventies, it has fared very well. It has been posted numerous times before but became quite popular again last year and decided to take a look with @Wastelandr. He had visited the site earlier in the year with KP but was happy to go again to show me around and have a good catch-up.
Information & History
A series of coal-fired power stations were constructed in Barking during the early to mid 20th century to supply electricity to the growing population of Essex and the surrounding areas. The riverside locations were chosen as coal could easily be delivered by rail and via the Thames.
Three main power stations were built as part of the plans and were simply named A, B & C. The A station was commissioned in 1925 and was capable of producing 600 MW of power. The site featured 8 Parsons turbo-generators and 22 boilers. Once commissioned, it was the largest power station in Britain to have been built as a complete station at one time. The station was modernised during the 1950s and 60s with boilers being converted to oil-firing. The station closed just a few years later in 1969.
Barking B was commissioned in 1933 due to increasing power demand and operated to its full capacity for the first time six years later. The capacity of B was 303 MW by 4 B.T.H turbo-generators. The station had 16 B&W chain grate boilers which were housed across two buildings. The power station was transferred to the London Division of the British Electricity Authority when the British electricity industry was nationalised in 1948. The station closed in 1976 following rising costs and environmental legislation.
Barking C was completed in 1954 and was opened by the British Electricity Authority. The station had a capacity of 225 MW provided by three B.T.H. generating sets. The boiler house contained 6 B&W boilers which were later converted to oil-firing. The station was the last one of the three to be decommissioned, with it closing in 1981.
Most of the station’s buildings have been demolished with just a few remnants left, such as the control room/substation building in this report. Next door is another control room building which funnily enough had an official tour and art exhibition hosted there a few months back which I had no idea about, it wasn’t until Wastelandr mentioned it just after we went that I knew about it. That building also looked interesting, it has no equipment remaining but the tiled walls and staircases are nice.
When doing my research, I couldn’t quite make out the location of the main power station site which had been demolished in relation to the substation/control room building, maybe I am just slow, but to help others, once I figured it out I made a diagram. The top image is the A/B power station in action in 1946, and the bottom image is Google 3D Satellite from a couple of years ago from roughly the same viewpoint. I have circled the control room building in red on each. It is quite difficult to make out the building on the old image, so you may have to zoom in:
The site today is an unusual mix of wasteland, thousands of new low-rise apartment blocks and an array of smaller power-related buildings such as internal and external substations. A new overground station has been recently constructed to connect the new Barking Riverside residents to the main rail network via Barking. The regeneration in this area is still underway and it is estimated to house 26,000 people by the time the project is completed in the 2030s.
The Explore
This was a fantastic day out. Myself and Wastelandr met at Lakeside shopping centre as a halfway point, had some great chicken wings from M&S (a wasp was trying to get a bite of mine) then we headed straight to Barking. The previous way Wastelandr tried getting onto the site was sealed so we felt a bit less than optimistic initially, but we found an alternative way onto the site. We spent around three hours exploring the substation and control room building and very much enjoyed it. As I mentioned earlier, Wastelandr had already done it but was keen to get some more shots so it was enjoyed by all. We were followed up the road a bit by some random guy following us pretty closely which seemed a bit sus, but turned out to be nothing haha. It is such a strange area with the new flats and then the barren wasteland and industrial remains which surround it, definitely ‘liminal’ vibes for sure.
Photos
No externals unfortunately (I think I may have actually taken a couple on Wastelandr’s camera as he had a more suitable lens on at the time but I don’t think I ever asked him to send them to me) so straight into the best bit, the 1930s control room:
Some finer details:
A couple of portraits:
CONTINUED…
