Coal-fired power station, built in 1964-1969 by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB), to design of architects Yorke, Rosenberg & Mardell. Landscape architects were Kenneth and Patricia Booth, contractor was Balfour Beatty. Cottam Power Station was one of 13 large new coal- and oil-fired power stations, largely released for construction by the CEGB in 1960-1964. Initial site clearance for Cottam Power Station began in 1964. Railway to site opened 1967, power station opened 1969; comprises large power station building incorporating the boiler house, 190.5m high chimney and 8 x 114.3m high cooling towers, primarily constructed of concrete and steel. In order to provide protection against flooding the area in which the main process buildings were constructed was raised by at least 3m, taking earth from borrow pits that were subsequently used for ash disposal. The turbine house and boiler house was built in two phases; pile caps for the half of the building where units No 1 and 2 would be situated was first completed, allowing erection of the steel frame to begin, followed by the pile caps and flooring for units No 3 and 4. The landscaping by Kenneth and Patricia Booth used wooded ground modelling techniques. A tree-clad ridge, some 15m high, was constructed to shield Cottam village from the visual mass and noise of the station. It used 750,000 cubic yards of earth excavated to create the station ash lagoons. One end of the ridge linked with a new road over-rail bridge, allowing it to read as a continuation of the land form and not as an isolated structure. Wooded embankments were used in other places to screen the switching compound, and off-site, some 6,000 trees were planted within a 4km radius of the station including beech, ash and turkey oak trees, interspersed with wild cherry and field maple. A tree nursery was established at the northern end of the site in 1966 to provide large saplings for subsequent planting. In conjunction with the construction of the station, Retford Rural Council built an estate of 71 new homes at North Leverton in 1967 to provide accommodation for the employees. Cottam Power Station first fed power to the grid on 9 June 1968, when Unit No1 was synchronised; just 39 months after work had begun in digging the station’s foundations. It was commissioned in 1969 by the CEGB. Among the notable features of the station were: English Electric generators built with pannier condensers placed on either side at the top, reducing the height of the supporting concrete frame and saving engineering costs; the C A Parsons and Company 600 MVA transformers built in single phase tanks and supplied to the CEGB for the first time; an escalator extending in several stages to boiler drum level to assist in the movement of staff and materials in the boiler house (since removed); and an unusual annular moat around the pump house to assist in the circulation of the cooling water.