Coventry Power Station

I have uploaded three images, from the 1970`s, in my gallery.

Thank you Greg great capture with the last one coming down.

Hi Greg. Me again, have no idea how to get into those pictures, but sounds like the old leckie was coming down. I was going to ask if it was still working, guess not. On post 27 of the slough the map shows there where two shafts sunk, now how did they build a power station over them. When you crossed the path to the field on your way to Sutton Stop there was a branch line that led down to the leckie, so the train came right up to AG Rd, then shunted the coal wagons down that line. The hot water from the cooling towers used to flow out through a special concrete culvert into the canal, half-way between SS and Tusses Bridge. We kids called it the hot waters, but that's where most of the kids from that area learnt to swim. In the warm waters.

I worked there for a week in Whitsun, 1963. Commandos (CommServices Refractory) were re bricking a boiler. My father was a bricklayer; it was dirty, dusty work, but good pay for a labourer. I got £11.16.0d clear for five week days.

Kaga. If you look to the left of the page, directly under the coat of arms at top you will see "Members Gallery". Click on that, you will find members pics. Just scroll down to find Greg's photographs.

Norman Conquest. Thanks, yes found them, and thanks Greg for the pictures, Kaga.

Hi Kaga. Bit off topic I know but did you ever know a guy named Si Russell? Think his name must have been Simon but we all called him Si. He lived up Aldermans Green Rd almost opposite the entrance to the Electricity works but a bit further up.

Norman. Hi, no can't recall him, I left there in 44, if before that is there any thing to distinguish him by? The old power station was part of my childhood, we played football just inside the gates, the path at the side we did our first courting encounters, swam in the warm water of the cooling towers, put pennies on the railway line that fed it, to see what shape they came out, after the train had passed over them. And it was in full view of our bedroom window. Two of my uncles worked there. We called it the Leckie.

Ah! Pennies on the line, I had a few flat pennies myself. Did you ever get those fog warners and put them on the line or throw bricks at them? Si Russell worked with me at the pit. I would call for him about 6.00 in the morning to take him to work on my motor bike. Every morning he would get out a bottle of rum and we would have a couple of tots before we set off. Madness. A tall thin man with the sombre expression of an undertaker. Lived topside of the Leckie gates, t'other side of the road.

Not the same power station but a post on one of the old Coventry FB pages this morning sparked this interest. I had not noticed these before - taken from St Michael's in 1936. The set of 8 chimneys I initially thought they were from the Daimler works. That must be a very late image of the second Hippodrome as well, as that one was taken down that year. After a bit of digging - I suspect they are actually connected to the turbine hall of Coventry's first electric power station dating from 1894. The power station buildings have now been converted to apartments known as Electric Wharf. You can see them here near Aldbourne Road (1937 Map, (although it shows x2 extra?!) Really had not noticed them before - Britain from Above 1920. And lastly in 1934 - I guess the station depended heavily on the water supply from the canal. Just the last few on the end to the left. (Mods, feel free to move to an alternative thread (canals?) if deemed more suitable).

They must have been quite some sight from the back gardens of houses on Aldbourne Road

They are more likely cooling towers. Cooling the water used to condense the steam after the turbines. There would be more cooling towers than chimneys. The warm water is run over a (wooden) packing in the tower where some of it evaporates (giving a white plume) cooling the remaining water. Power stations can operate without cooling water, but they are a lot more efficient with them. Peter.

Peter B, Yes the wooden slats were like blinds inside the water big towers of Longford power station, about a foot apart, the water splashed down from one to the next all the way down the tower, occasionally one would break, causing a right clatter as it bounced down, when they replaced them they were covered in a green algae like barnacles. But the water was clean warm and brilliant to lay in, in the shallow concrete pool before returning to the canal.

I started my training with the CEGB at Longford Power Station while the original, 1939ish, boiler house was being demolished in 1970. The cooling towers were an oasis of warm humid air and I remember, later, standing in a large cooling tower at Drakelow Power Station, on top of the slats where the warm water enters (about a third of the way up from ground level) in the middle of winter, surrounded by a warm tropical vista of ferns thriving in this atmosphere. This was effectively a world within a world bringing visions of an HG Wells novel. Back to the main subject; cooling towers have been constructed in many forms including square forms with large fans to assist cooling in hot climates, to the more familiar hyperboloid-shaped cooling towers creating an efficient natural draft. Kaga, you raise a good point about the return of water to the canal. During the long hot summer in the mid 70's, 1976 if I recall correctly, the CEGB used cooling towers around the UK to pass river water through and re-oxygenate the water to help prevent the river life dying from lack of oxygen in the water.

Earlsdon Kid, Yes, but those cooling towers (5) were knocked out of action during the war when the canal was breached and it was drained for a mile - must have caused some disruption to Coventry power supply, but I have never heard or seen any mention of it, and now I believe I am the only witness left that saw it, and was very close to it. Despite all the hoo-ha of the bombing, one stick of 4 bombs, and two of them direct hits, made us think how good they were.