Power Station. Eight cooling towers and one 650ft chimney. The whole power plant enveloped in a bright amber-coloured aluminium sheeting. Architects: Yorke Rosenberg Mardall, 1964-8. (1)

Cottam Power Station was completed in 1969. The complex is one of Trentside chain of 2000mw stations. Cottam features four 500mw turbines within the engine house and a grouping of eight 375 feet high cooling towers (2)

Cottam Power Station was built in 1964-1969 to the design of the architects Yorke, Rosenberg and Mardell with the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). The power station was assessed for listing in 2018. It was found to fall short of the criteria and a COI was subsequently granted…the architectural treatment of the buildings at the site was highly utilitarian, and the architectural detailing, surface finish and material texture is of lesser quality and variety than other power stations of the period. Likewise, the planning of the complex compares poorly to its contemporaries, and while the landscape design goes some way to mitigate against the impact of the massive structures, it does not compensate for the degree of architectural interest of the buildings. Cottam Power Station does not have claims to substantial technological innovation, nor special historic interest in the national context. Cottam Power Station falls short of the criteria for listing, and we recommend a renewed Certificate of Immunity should be issued (Historic England 2022). (3)

Cottam was one of 13 oil- and coal-fired ‘super-stations’ built by the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) based around the 500MW turbo-generator set, released for construction during the early 1960s and known colloquially as ‘Hinton’s Heavies’ after Christopher Hinton, CEBG chairman, 1957-64. Together with nearby West Burton, and Ratcliffe-on-Soar, it is one of three such ‘super-stations’ of 2,000MW capacity within the lower Trent Valley; constructed between 1964 and 1968, Cottam was the tenth of the stations to be completed, being first synchronised to the grid in 1968 and fully commissioned in1969. (4)

<1> Pevsner N, 1979, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire 2nd ed., p 108 (Monograph). SNT4.

<2> Littlewood D, 2017, Nottinghamshire County Council (Personal comment). SNT4765.

<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 Ric Tyler, 2018, Descriptive Buildings Record (Level 2) at West Burton A Power Station by Ric Tyler (Unpublished document). SNT5521.