Thought this might be of interest to a number of CCE-ers:
Lang may yer lums reek
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Let's keep Cockenzie, Scotland's modernist cathedral of power"
(26 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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Posted 12 years ago #
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We've already knocked down it's near twin (Kincardine) and contemporaneous sites at Barony in Ayrshire and last year in Methil. Inverkip is being dismantled just now (whose chimneys were the tallest free-standings structures in Scotland.)
This leaves Cockenzie as perhaps the last change to preserve something of this era. It's far more handsome than Longannet, which suffers from four chimneys combined into a single stack which, despite being taller than those of Cockenzie, appears to be proportionately short and dumpy.
Emasculating it would be dreadful - imagine knocking down the stack of Bankside (Tate Modern now) or Battersea power stations in London. You might as well complete the job and flatten thr whole thing if that's your approach.
We're much too quick to flatten our modernist and industrial architecture, like the original Shrubhill powerhouse and like what National Grid want to do at the Granton gasholder. And it's usually to enable them to create a quick buck and throw up some nasty housing development.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Cockenzie Power Station from bird hide!Yes I like it from a distance too.
Not sure that Scotland likes its industrial history much.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Totally agree, K. These massive industrial buildings are fantastic structures. I'm a big fan of Torness as well. In the pages on the second link, there's a link to footage of Portobello power station, which looks like a belter of a brick behemoth as well.
I'm not clear on why you would need to change the chimneys to convert it to gas. Anyone know?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Posted 12 years ago #
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Anyone know?
Boilers on a power station are forced draught, so it can't be for that. I have vague recollections from first year urban geography course at uni that it's to do with what you are ejecting from the stack. There's sulphur and nitrogen oxides from coal, and not from gas, so perhaps because you're only ejecting CO2 and water from natural gas, you don't need the tall stack.
Posted 12 years ago # -
So you might knock the big chimneys down because they'll cost more to maintain in the long run than it will cost to replace them with crappy wee things now?
Posted 12 years ago # -
@PS It looks, unsurprisingly, more complicated than just that - the combustion gases from natural gas will be of a different density and temperature than that of coal, so will require a different height and guage of stack.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Boo! Why not just keep the big chimneys and hide the small ones on a different bit of the building, thereby avoiding demolition costs?
Posted 12 years ago # -
kaputnik,
Battersea power station has been a wreck for about 25 years.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@wfb yes, but a wreck with chimbleys!
Posted 12 years ago # -
Don't know if Inverkip still has a chimney. The station was being demolished when we were down there in October. I'll be on Cumbrae in June so I'll check it then.
Posted 12 years ago # -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-23254894
The view from the top of Inverkip stack.
TO be brought down on 28th July. Will be quite a sight!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Stack is scheduled for demolition tonight at 22.00.
The last train to Inverkip is the 1950 from GLC. That doesn't really matter because the last train back is the 2054.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Paper says there will be a wide exclusion zone round Inverkip. Should have gone to Cumbrae earlier in the week.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Scotland's secret tunnel under the Forth, 50 years old and forgotten
While two of Scotland's best known landmarks, the two bridges over the Forth, will be celebrated this year there is a third crossing which is a distant memory: a tunnel in the rock cut by the coal mining industryPosted 11 years ago # -
"
It’s been suggested the ambitious proposals could see the disused power station transformed into a “Tate Modern for Scotland”, complete with performance space, shops and even a swimming pool.
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Posted 9 years ago # -
a “Tate Modern for Scotland”, complete with performance space, shops and even a swimming pool
So not really the Tate Modern at all then.
Posted 9 years ago # -
I thought it was going to be a gas powered station. Obviously wrong!
Posted 9 years ago # -
There's only a frame and some side panels now.
Posted 9 years ago # -
chimneys come down on sept 26th
Posted 9 years ago #
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