- Bradwell on Sea nuclear power station
- Another 25th anniversary
- Goldfinger's house
- Television archaeology
- GLIAS cruise
- William Ellis School
- Note on Liberty Ships
- East London notes
- Obscure Gas Works of East London No 2
- GLIAS walks
- Open House day
- Letters to the editor
- 154news.pdf
Recently I visited Bradwell Magnox nuclear power station, and can recommend a visit. Visitors are nowadays welcome at all nuclear power stations. Bradwell has two reactors and visitors are shown No. 1 re-actor. The power station is 32 years old and has recently been given a new certificate of safety to operate for another ten years. The back-up safety system has been updated. Magnox takes its name from the Magnesium alloy casings which surround the uranium rods. The casings are finned to allow maximum transfer of heat to the carbon dioxide gas, which in turn transfers its heat to the steam boilers which drive the turbines.
The reactor viewing gallery is high above the pressure vessel - all that can really be seen are the two ton blocks which cover the nuclear rods and a large gantry-operated machine which handles the new and used uranium rods by remote camera control. New rods last for about five years; the spent fuel rods are lowered into a water tank where they remain to cool for about 100 days and are then sent to Sellafield for re-processing; 99% of the uranium is recovered.
The pressure vessel is a four inch thick steel sphere, all surrounded by a concrete shield. Inside the pressure vessel the fuel rods are surrounded by carbon dioxide gas at a pressure of about 120 lbs. sq. inch. which transfers its heat to the boiler in a closed cycle. Bradwell is manually controlled - both re-actors Nos. 1 and 2 are controlled from the same console in the control room. An array of dials and graphs indicates the condition of the system. In station No. 1 turbine hall are six Parsons turbine generators producing a maximum of 52 MW each which usually run at 42 MW at 11.8 KV transformed to 132 KV and connected to the grid at Rayleigh 20 miles away. hooling water for the steam condensers is extracted from the River Blackwater at 227 million litres per hour and returned to the river warmer by 10°C.
By contrast - nearby is probably the oldest church in England, which is the chapel of St. Peter-on-the-Wall, built circa 654 AD. by St. Cedd. The chapel is on the wall of the Roman fort of Othona and built of the stone from the fort, which originated in Kent. The local countryside is very enjoyable for picnics and the antique shop in Steeple provides very nice cream teas. Charlie Thurston
Alongside the first landing of Man on the Moon, the start of the current Irish troubles, and other notable if depressing events, 1969 also saw another happening. Accepted, it is of more local and minor significance in world history, but it merite notice here if nowhere else. Industrial Monuments of Greater London' was a first (and so far unrepeated) attempt at a gazetteer of the entire region's industrial archaeology.
Its genesis was with the disbanding Thames Basin Archaeological Observers' Group, whose IA section was established in the mid-1960's and can fairly be called the precursor of GLIAS. The Group put its liquidation assets into the printing of IMGL', and arranged for a generous share of the sales proceeds to go to GLIAS, then just founded.
Work began on the guide in 1967, when John Ashdown (now Oxford's Conservation Officer) and Paul Carter (first secretary of GLIAS) wrote to various departments in all the Greater London Borough Councils, asking them to give details of all known industrial monuments in their area. Replies varied from silence to lists with brief descriptions, and with further contributions from numerous individuals - this material was organised into a 64-page booklet with some 360 or so site entries (of which perhaps half survive, as then described, today has anyone ever checked?).
I became involved in 1968 through the TBAOG IA section, and particularly because I had an elderly 1950s IBM Executive electric typewriter, at the time also being used for the early GLIAS Newsletters and itself now an industrial monument. No word processors then! Most entries, organised on a borough-by-borough basis, were drafted by John or Paul, and the lot was typed out by your scribe. The sheets, with some hand-drawn illustrations and a short article on London Coal Duties boundary posts by Maurice Bawtree, ware taken in the summer of 1969 to Fermaprint, a cheap but able firm of photolitho printers in Fleet Street, who also printed our early Newsletters. (100 copies of an A4 sheet of text photo-mastered and printed for £1, run-ons at 4/- or 20p per 100 sheets in 1969...) I remember going with Paul to collect the 600+ copies; it was the 11th August 1969, so says my diary, and with Leslie Matthews, the TBADG treasurer, we paid for these around £175 in cash - say £2,000 in today's prices. John Ashdown's dramatic cover design was particularly pleasing, a silhouette of Telford's St. Katharine Docks columns framing the title on a yellow ground.
The booklet was sold by post through magazine insert advertisements, and by stall sales, at 7/6 (37½ pence) over the counter or 8/6 (42½ pence) 'post free' as one could quote postal sale prices in those days. It quickly sold out, and has since become a collector's item. A bookseller advertising one at £5 in the 1980s told me that it went at once, and that he had had numerous enquiries for further copies as available. Reviews were favourable in various places, particularly the Daily Telegraph's 'Peterborough' column and (by J M Richards no less) in 'The Architectural Review'.
Plans for a new edition were in hand in 1973 when we were approached by Batsfords to write a Greater London volume in their planned national IA series. How this book is still to appear, why Batsfords abandoned the series, how Manchester University Prese offered to publish 'our' volume, whether Industrial Monuments of Greater London' (2) will ever hit the streets all these may interest future historians of the IA movement, and indeed the present GLIAS readership. For the meanwhile, this short account of 'the first attempt' is I hope, an adequate note of how it happened 25 years ago. Michael Bussell
The modernist architect Ernö Goldfinger (GLIAS Newsletter August 1992), who died in 1987, built himself a house in Hampstead at 2 Willow Walk, one of a terrace of three. In order to do this a number of Georgian cottages were demolished which caused a local outcry at the time.
We have now come full circle and Goldfinger's house has been listed grade II and it seems likely that the National Trust will acquire it and it will be open to parties of visitors by appointment. It is said to be a perfect timecapsule complete with period works of art and a campaign is being launched to secure these for display in the house. This is an important conservation breakthrough and together with the decision to retain Bankside power station marks a significant change in Establishment attitudes towards the 20th century.
Born in Hungary in 1902, Ernö Goldfinger studied in Paris and came to England in 1934. The three houses in Willow Walk dating from 1937 are his first major work. From the outset one was intended for himself and his wife Ursula. The terrace is of ferro-concrete construction with red brick facing and the unknowing might walk straight past without a second look so familiar has the style become through its subsequent repetition on a massive scale. Some of the original furniture in Goldfinger's home will also appear equally commonplace although it is individually made (mass production of such things came later).
Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (born the same year as Goldfinger) considered the design for the facade of the Willow Walk terrace harmonised much better with Georgian Hampstead than anything built in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Bob Carr
Website: www.nationaltrust.org.uk
It is now possible to get modern compact convertors so as to be able to view current television broadcasts on obsolete 405 line TV sets. There is a band of enthusiasts called the 405 Alive group.
Website: www.bvws.org.uk/405alive/
The Friends of Alexandra Palace are involved with the organisation of visits on a regular basis to the former television studios there. They also campaign for more public awareness and funding in support of this important North London site generally.
Website: www.alexandrapalace.com
On Sunday 21 August a boatload of members aboard the Sargent Brothers' working boat Enterprise sailed upriver with the tide from Charlton as far as Lambeth. On the way up we nosed into St Saviour's Dock and returning eastwards moored for ten minutes or so beside steps at Bankside close to the construction site of the new Southwark Shakespearian theatre. Before returning to Charlton a short detour was made up Bow Creek to the north of the A13 road bridge. This gave a chance to see at close quarters the various small pipe bridges and so forth south of the East India Dock Road and to inhale the fragrances from Pura Foods Ltd. The stone abutments of the Rennie iron bridge are still clearly visible.
In certain circles a popular mythology seems to have come into being that before the redevelopment of the London dockland and the building of the Canary Wharf complex 'there was nothing there anyway'. At one time this was the World's Largest Port — memories are short and unreliable. From an industrial archaeological or maritime point of view the Thames and both its banks from Charlton to Westminster are now frightfully dead. So much has been cleared away and the remnants sterilised. Even the river bus service has finished. Lenanton's timber wharf on the west side of the Isle of Dogs is still in evidence but this survivor may not remain much longer. The only wharf with any appreciable activity is Convoy's at Deptford, importing newsprint material with ro-ro vessels and there are now some prestige ship visits to the Upper Pool. About the only real ships still visiting London come to Tate & Lyle's Thames Refinery Jetty at Silvertown (just downriver of our cruise). Long may they continue. Bob Carr
During the Easter school holiday, GLIAS was asked by Jill Westwood of the staff of the William Ellis School, Parliament Hill, NW5, if we could arrange a one-day programme of IA during the pre-sixth formers' activities week in mid-July. This was an attractive idea consistent with GLIAS' aims as an educational charity and potentially a source of new young blood for the society so we accepted with alacrity.
When it came to choosing a programme we did not have much difficulty in deciding on the King's Cross area with its wide variety of sites and the Canal Museum to provide a lunch spot and a final visit. So it was that at 10.30am on Wednesday 13th July four committee members, all society officers, met some 30 young people and five members of staff in the forecourt of St Pancras station. It should be added that the staff were responsible for their pupils, GLIAS members were guides only. We started with a visit to St Pancras, including the view from the outer end, for which we had obtained permission, and proceeded via the GLIAS walk through the area to the north to the canal, and from there to the Granary. At this point it became apparent that we were losing the attention of the young people and we made earlier than intended for the Canal Museum. After lunch we handed over to Malcolm Tucker at the museum, and our part in the day ended. We must express our thanks to Malcolm and the staff of the museum.
Overall the day must be judged a success. Some very interesting questions were asked and there is certainly some latent interest in IA among the young people. At the same time we learned something about keeping younger people interested - experience which will be useful on another occasion - we hope the school agrees with us. We would be glad to try again next year. We have received some response from the school in the form of a scrap book of the day. We hoped to have some photographs but they have not materialised yet. Some of the pupils made some excellent sketches of St Pancras. When term starts we hope some of this material may come in.
Further to the article in GLIAS Newsletter August 1994 on Liberty ships, although these vessels constituted the most remarkable application of mass production techniques and were a key factor in enabling the UK to survive in WW2, they possessed a rather disturbing characteristic. Some 1,200 of these ships developed cracks in their structure up to 10 ft in length; 250 were rendered unserviceable and 19 ships broke in two. It did not even need rough seas to lead to disaster - the tanker SS 'Panagansett' split in two when moored at the dockside, another tanker, the SS 'Schenectady' broke its back in still water at the outfitting dock, one even fell apart before launching! The ships tended to suffer from 'brittle fracture which has been described as 'probably the most frequently discovered of all mechanical properties'.
As the temperature falls, structural steel instead of behaving in a ductile manner becomes brittle. Nowadays, designers take care to ensure that the temperature at which this transition in properties takes place is below the lowest likely temperature the structure will experience. However, in the case of the 'Panagansett', the steel was brittle at 35°C! The cracks which propagated almost explosively through these ships usually started from a point of stress concentration - often at the corner of a square hatch opening or a poor weld. Cracks certainly were not unknown in ships before the 1940s but with conventional rivetted construction a crack in one plate stopped at the boundary of the plate and did not propagate further in a fully-welded structure like that of the Liberty ships there was no such 'stopper' for the crack and on occasion the crack would pass extremely rapidly right around the hull with disastrous consequences - GLIAS members proposing to sail on the Jeremiah O'Brien' may care to reflect on the above!
1. The Docklands Golf Range is now open its location must be unique for it is situated in what was the basement, now open to the sky, of the demolished Brunswick Wharf Power Station.
2. On 7th June 1994 a programme in the BBC2 series 'One Foot in the Past' stated that a large quantity of the stonework from the Euston Arch has been discovered. A British Waterways man said that the stone had been used to fill in a large hole in the bed of the Lea at Bromley-by-Bow.
3. The Thames Tunnel' 1825-43; where shield tunnelling began' is the title of an interesting and detailed paper by Sir Alan Muir Wood in the 'Civil Engineering' part of the Proc. Instn.Civ. Engrs. for August 1994, pages 130-139.
4. The Docklands Light Rail extension to Beckton, now open, is well worth an IA journey. The section from Poplar to Royal Victoria, much of which is at a high level, provides excellent vantage points for the areas around the former East India Docks and the River Lea, but the section further east is mainly remarkable for the large expanses of water and land cleared for redevelopment and a fair degree of imagination is needed to recapture the past for once the infrastructure has preceded development! A notable activity to be seen from the Beckton Extension in recent months has been the demolition of the massive reinforced-concrete CWS Granary built between 1938 and 1944 to designs by L G Elkins. The most depressing view on the journey is provided by the appalling eyesore of the remnants of Beckton Gasworks near the Beckton terminus still not cleared up.
The new official handbook to Docklands Light Rail is now available - its authors are Pearce, Jolly and Hardy, and it is published by Capital Transport at £7.95. It helps to clarify the many changes which have taken place both in structure and rolling stock as some have now entered the category of 'engineering history'.
The Jubilee Line extension works are having a considerable impact on Docklands, most visibly at Heron Wharf with the works for the station at Canary Wharf. Another consequence has been the suspension of the North London Lines train service between Stratford and North Woolwich until next year. In the meantime, buses in North London Line colours are replacing the rail service. At present. there is no DLR station at Canning Town which is rather strange, as the area must be the major source of potential passengers on the Beckton line, but a new interchange station between BR, DLR and the Jubilee Line is now being constructed.
A supplement to the 'New Civil Engineer' entitled 'The Jubilee Line Extension' was published in February 1994 at the completely unreasonable price of £20 for a 60-page booklet, but worth getting sight of especially as present-day construction in Docklands is much constrained by the past. Don Clow
Obscure Gas Works of East London No 2
If you go down the Old Kent Road and look behind the shops on the corner of Trafalgar Avenue you will find a big old house. There, in 1860, an old man died, tended by his daughter, a Mrs Donkin. Despite his 90 years the old man had been until the previous week the active Managing Director of the oldest gas company in the world, the Gas Light & Coke.
Although this old man is not in the Dictionary of National Biography you will find his father and son mentioned there. His father was a doctor, who founded the Royal Humane Society, and his son was a politician. His name was Benjamin Hawes and he had founded what became the largest soap works in London. It was at Old Barge House, on the river bank slightly to the west of Blackfriars Bridge.
That he was the Governor of the Gas Light & Coke Company demonstrates a remarkable change of allegiances because in the 1820s Hawes' soap works had been the site of a gas works fuelled by oil. Oil gas is a whole subject, and one which I intend to describe in more detail in a future article. It is enough here to say that there had been considerable commercial rivalry between coal and oil gas manufacturers. For a soap manufacturer to make gas from oil made a lot of sense because oils which were not used to make soap, for a number of reasons, could be used for gas. Sadly, most of the oil came from whales, but palm and coconut oil was also used. About 100 cubic foot of gas was made from one gallon of oil. The gas making apparatus had been supplied to Hawes by Taylor and Martineau (of whom more in a future article). The plant, about ten feet from the main works, was run by one man 'chosen for his regularity and sobriety'. There was a 'gasometer' in the yard. The gas was not purified in any way, or even washed. Smell did not matter; soap making was after all 'not the most savoury operation'.
The gas was made for lighting the soap works, in particular the cellar which was lit day and night. Gas was also supplied, at 45s. per 1,000 cubic feet, to neighbourhood shops and pubs via a two inch main. In Old Barge House itself gas was burnt in the bedrooms, dressing rooms, nursery, hall and stairs.
The soap works was run by another brother, William. It is described in Dodds' 'Days at the Factories. The Hawes were an influential family. The names of Benjamin and William permeate industrial enterprises of the last century; breweries, dock companies, railways. Many of the projects which they supported were those of I K Brunel who was a frequent visitor to Old Barge House both before and after his sister's marriage to Benjamin Jnr.
It is not clear when the oil gas works closed and Benjamin Snr. became a leading light in the coal gas world. The family influence in gas was to continue through the engineering company into which Caroline Hawes had married: the Bryan Donkin Company Ltd. were to be leaders in the supply of gas distribution equipment.
Since writing the account of the East London Theatre Gas works I have acquired a copy of James Stevens Curl 'The Life and Works of Henry Roberts 1803-1876" (Phillimore 1983). This is a fascinating account of Roberts' life which I would very much recommend. It gives considerable detail on the Well Street Destitute Sailors Home, including the information that it was opened in 1835. This means that the fire at the East London Theatre could not possibly have been in 1836 - although the newspaper cutting from which the account was taken had that date on it. It is most likely to have been 1826. Mary Mills
The success of the 1993 Walks led to five further walks this summer. A note about the first three appeared in GLIAS Newsletter August 1994. The final two walks took members of both GLIAS and the general public to the Regent's Canal and Hackney Wick. Charles Norrie arranged to take us from Little Venice to Camden on 13th August and for a pre-walk refreshment in the 'local' at Warwick Avenue. Some confusion arose as Time Out had mixed up our pre-publicity with a 'phone call about a paying walk which was to start at 11.00. The organiser of the 'rival' walk took the matter philosophically and joined us for a pint beforehand, commenting that he didn't very often get many takers for an 'on spec' walk. We arrived at Warwick Avenue to find seventy people who needed to be shepherded along the tow path, this led to a severe thirst attacking Charles at the end where a number of walkers adjourned to another pub! Mary Mills' walk on 3rd September (to avoid the AIA conference) suffered somewhat from the rain which cleared up as the twenty seven walkers finished. The reputation of GLIAS' walks seemed to penetrate even the bad weather with 'regular' walkers, members and non-members turning up. As the weather cleared and the original walk hao been taken at a good speed a visit to Victoria Park was agreed; the party being greeted in the open space by the return of the rain!
GLIAS must express its thanks to all those who helped; Bill Firth; David Perrett; Sue Hayton; Charles Norrie and Mary Mills. Their audiences would have been smaller without the efforts of Kathleen Gribble who brought in numbers of regular walkers. A reminder to anyone who wants to organise a walk for next year to get in touch with the Hon. Secretary. Dan Hayton
Open House day Saturday 10th September
This year for the first time London was involved in the Open House programme which is a feature of many cities on the Continent. Unfortunately the 'powers that be' organised the 'Day' for the same weekend as the AIA Conference which meant that many GLIAS members would be out of London. For those that were left 'Open House Day' was an opportunity to visit more than 200 buildings in Greater London, some of which are not normally open, for free. The list of buildings which represented over a 1,000 years of history contained many buildings familiar to GLIAS members - for example the Brunel Engine House in Rotherhithe, Stoke Newington Pumping Station as well as various London Underground Stations and Bus Garages.
With such an impressive list it was difficult to decide what to concentrate on. We decided to look first at the Central Hall on Mare Street. It was built in 1926 for the Methodist Church by Gunton & Gunton and designed for multi-purpose use; the Main Hall was intended both for worship and public assembly. For many years now the hall has been closed as congregations have declined but recent refurbishment means that the Hall is once more open for use. Many of the original fittings still remain and the hall is certainly worth an inspection.
Across the road is the Hackney Town Hall built in the 20s and still containing beautiful art deco light fittings in the entrance halls and Council Chamber - a hidden jewel for most of us. Next it was on the the Stage Door of the Hackney Empire and indeed onto the stage of the theatre where we were given a brief resume of the history of the building which has seen performances by all the great music hall stars. It was surprising that the fabulous interior, by Frank Matcham, seem so small despite being one of the largest music halls. It was also the first public building in Hackney to have electric light.
On next to Hoxton Hall, in Hoxton Street, an 1867 music hall hiding behind a much later facade - another hidden jewel. A quick visit to Shoreditch Public Library in Pitfield Street was rather disappointing. War damage meant that there was little of The original interior remaining and the staff did not seem interested in visitors. the exterior of 1896 in terra cotta by H.T. Hare is always worth a look. Needing some refreshment we hurried to Great Swan Alley in the City where the Institute of Chartered Accountants was providing much needed refreshments. The interior of this building was equally interesting as its facade with scenes from British History as well as Commerce and Science etc., designed by John Belcher in 1893 in English Baroque style. Our last visit of the day was to the German Hospital in Hackney, now being converted to housing. What was open was the 30s block off Graham Road, notable for both its architecture and also its medical ideas. Each floor had a sun deck where patients could take their ease and on the roof was an open air ward where patients in their beds could taken. The roof provided clear views all over London a perfect way to end the day. Thanks must be given to the organisers and to the guides from the RIBA who spent a full day explaining the architecture of so many buildings to so many Londoners. Roll on next year! Sue Hayton
A short note to let you know that in Swindon we still have our 'Magic Roundabout' (GLIAS Newsletter August 1994), near Swindon Town Football Ground. Apart from striking terror in the hearts of unsuspecting visitors, it always appears to me to do a good job in keeping the traffic flowing, and as far as I know there are no plans to change it. One cannot say this with certainty because so many odd things are tried here, to alter the traffic flow, that its success could well be its downfall! Keep up the good work with the Newsletter it is the most interesting one that I receive.
Peter Marshall's notes of a visit to the crematorium at Manor Park were most helpful and revealing about what lies ahead for over 69% of the country's population. It seems that the former crematorium he mentioned at Aldersbrook Road was built for the City of London in 1904 and the tenth to be completed in Great Britain. The present crematorium was built 1973 and cost about £400,000 excluding the land. According to the records it is the second busiest in the Greater London area.
It is surprising to find that the Cremation Society of Great Britain was founded as long ago as 1874 by Sir Henry Thompson, 'to promote a more sanitary, reverent and inexpensive method of disposing of the dead'. The first cremation took place on 26th March 1865 at Woking, Surrey, the deceased being a Mrs Pickersgill.
The Woking Crematorium is situated in Hermitage Rd, St John's and is owned by the London Cremation Society. Since 1885 the number of crematoria has grown to 228 at the last count in 1992, and about 51 new schemes are under consideration, The best reference source on the subject is the Directory of Crematoria, published by the Cremation Society of Great Britain. Most public libraries have a copy on their shelves.
Re: STEPHENSON'S VALLTS, NORTH LONDON
In September, Camden Council may decide to give planning permission for the redevelopment of 'Stephenson's Vaults'. These are brick vaults, beneath a section of the railway line between Camden and Euston, which were built in 1837 to house the standing engines which were required to power the cable system to pull trains up the incline on the final section of the track. They became redundant in 1845 when the locomotives became strong enough to tackle the gradient on their own. According to 'The Architect's Journal' the vaults were in use for such a short time that they do not appear on the OS map and were largely forgotten until the late 1980s. Does anyone have any details of these vaults? Have they appeared in past GLIAS newsletters, and is the recording group of GLIAS interested?
(GLIAS Newsletter August 1990)