West Burton Power Station, the eight towers and two chimneys grouped effectively, the surroundings well planted. Designed by the Architects Design Group, landscaped by Derek Lovejoy & Associates, it won a Civic Trust award in 1969. (1)
An immense engineering work of great style. The assymetrical grouping of the cooling towers is most effective and their relationship with the main buildings is very satisfactory. With its undoubted chic, [it] must really be the Beau Brumell of Nottinghamshire. (2)
Application for listeding refused in August 2022. Historic England Assement reads: Designed in 1961 and built in 1962-1968. The architects were Rex Savidge and John Gelsthorpe of Architects’ Design Group. The finalised design set two chimneys behind the boiler house and turbine hall, and split the cooling towers into two groups at either end; four in a lozenge formation and four broadly in a line. This grouping was arrived at following model studies by Gordon Graham using a device called a heliodon… used in the design of subsequent 2000 MW stations. Savidge and Gelsthorpe used dark-grey cement for two of the four towers in the lozenge group, which provided tonal contrast to their neighbours… The boiler and turbine hall were similarly treated, with large areas of contrasting black and white sheeting on adjacent sides of the buildings. Yellow cement was used for the most northerly, and slightly offset cooling tower, creating a point of reference visible from multiple viewpoints around which the station could articulate and cohere. Bright yellow-finished aluminium sheeting was used to clad the 400 kV switch house, the side walls of the coal-handling plant crusher, and the ends of the triangular roof trusses above the black-sided turbine hall. Landscaping by Derek Lovejoy [included] tree-planting outside of the station's site, and partial screening within it. … [for which it was] granted a Civic Trust award for its ‘outstanding contribution to the surrounding scene’ in 1968. Officially opened on 25 April 1969 by the Minister of Power, Roy Mason, and the then Chairman of the CEGB, Arthur Hawkins. It cost £80m to construct. As the first 2000 MW to be commissioned,…it incorporated several new features, including the first ‘merry-go-round’ coal delivery system… The four 500 MW English Electric turbo-generators were the first of this type to be installed at a power station. …supplied with coal from the Welbeck and Thoresby collieries. [There were sev eral late C20 / Early C21 alterations. BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES MATERIALS: the main process buildings which contain the boilers, turbines, generators and transformers are constructed of steel frames and built in a common idiom with brick plinths or lower walls, plastic-coated ribbed aluminium or semi-transparent ribbed plastic cladding, and sheet cladding to the roofs. The control room is built of precast concrete with an exposed aggregate finish. Administrative and ancillary buildings are variously of brick and pre-cast concrete panels or aluminium cladding. The cooling towers and chimneys are constructed of reinforced concrete. [The site comprises] administrative buildings around an open courtyard; main RECEPTION AND OFFICE BLOCK, CANTEEN AND KITCHEN; WELFARE AND VENDING OFFICES; SWITCH HOUSE CONTROL BLOCK; TURBINE HALL, BOILER HOUSE; CHIMNEYS; FGD electrical building; two groups of COOLING TOWERS; (a lozenge array of four towers to the west of the main buildings and a sweeping arc of four towers to the east); COAL STOCK AREA; WORKSHOPS AND STORES. (3)
One of 13 oil- and coal-fired power stations built by the Central Electricity Board (CEGB) based around the 500MW turbo-generator set, the largest then available, built during the 1960s and known colloquially as ‘Hinton’s Heavies’, named after Sir Christopher Hinton, the first chairman of CEGB. Released for construction in 1961, the plant was commissioned between 1967 and 1968 and was officially opened on 25th April 1969. Together with Cottam, and Ratcliffe-on-Soar, it is one of three such ‘super-stations’ of 2,000MW capacity within the lower Trent Valley… The first to be commissioned… West Burton incorporates a number of (at the time) innovative features developed for the programme, which were to become characteristic of later plants, such as the provision for merry-go-round (MGR) trains with ‘balloon loop’ delivery systems. Of particular interest is the arrangement of cooling towers, here split into9 two fields to avoid visual ‘blocking’ and thereby lessen the impact of the station upon its sensitive, rural location. This was originally enhanced by the use of colour in the concrete shell pf three of the towers, though this detail has been lost to secondary modification. (4)

<1> Pevsner N, 1979, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire 2nd ed. (Monograph). SNT4.

<2> AEM, --/05/1969, Architecture East Midlands, p 35 (Article in serial). SNT1550.

<3> 2016, Historic England Designations Notification Report. (Document). SNT4552.

<4> Ric Tyler, 2018, Descriptive Buildings Record (Level 2) at West Burton A Power Station by Ric Tyler (Unpublished document). SNT5520.