ICI Hillhouse Power Station, Blackpool - May 2009

[thompski]

ICI Hillhouse, in Thornton, Blackpool was a large chemical works primarily involved in Chlorine manufacture. It closed in 1992 with no job losses and much of the site split between various businesses. The works had its own Power Station, built in 1958 which is currently being demolished as we found out today. A cracking site, glad I got to visit before it was pulled down

Visited with 4737carlin.

One of the three 98MW boilers

Turbines

 

[james.s]

Wow! What a cute, pocket sized power station, shame it's being demolished. Nice pictures

 

[Lightbuoy]

Quality place T

Are the turbines Parsons (similar to those at NGTE?)

 

[thompski]

Wow! What a cute, pocket sized power station, shame it's being demolished. Nice pictures

Cheers James, it might look small but believe me its fairly large!

Are the turbines Parsons (similar to those at NGTE?)

Thanks L, sadly we couldn't get a closer look - folks were working outside and we didn't fancy being seen.

 

[Lightbuoy]

Okay -sounds like a case of "so close and yet so far"

Cheers for the reply

 

[james.s]

Cheers James, it might look small but believe me its fairly large!

I was just comparing it to Ratcliffe-on-soar
this one looks quite big now

 

[Cuban B.]

What a great looking site, wish I could've seen it. Has all the asbestos been stripped from the inside?

 

[Krypton]

That dosnt look like a boiler

 

[wolfism]

That looks very nice indeed - shades of a papermill power station we had a look at a while back. I like the lionweld grating floors ... but they're buggers of things to rest a tripod on.

 

[thompski]

Has all the asbestos been stripped from the inside?

I won't disclose the reasons in public, but we were under the impression it had been stripped of asbestos.

I like the lionweld grating floors ... but they're buggers of things to rest a tripod on.

Too true, that and the strong Lancashire coastal winds made photography a very difficult process here!

 

[Foxylady]

Excellent site and photos, thompski. Looks like it was a good explore.
Love the pic of the feed pipes.

 

[andy m]

Ace, I had a look at this place a year or two back, but they were busy stripping it, so I left it for another day, but I've got an itch to go back.........

 

[Ragamuffin]

Wow what a great place!!! Shame to hear it's goin :-(

 

[littlelaura]

Too true, looks class. Wouldnt have minded a poke.. Good job and nice pics !

 

[thompski]

Too true, looks class. Wouldnt have minded a poke.. Good job and nice pics !

Cheers. Your in a good position for exploring industrial abandonment's - lots of stuff in Leicester as well as plenty in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire which are not a million miles away.

 

[swedish]

some really nice dark shots man, shame you didnt get a full X as looks like it would have been an awesome 1...Anyway shame its gone would have loved to have a look at this one!

 

[thompski]

some really nice dark shots man, shame you didnt get a full X as looks like it would have been an awesome 1...Anyway shame its gone would have loved to have a look at this one!

From reading the other reports, the only major loss was the control room, however I believe that was demo'd before we arrived. Either way I am generally satisfied I got what I did, considering some of the stories I had heard about the place.

 

[Black Shuck]

Nice one Thompski. Any idea what the hoppers are for?

 

[thompski]

Nice one Thompski. Any idea what the hoppers are for?

I'm not massively well informed on power stations however I assume they would have been for coal?

 

[thompski]

Update - this power station was recently demolished by explosion, however I get the feeling it didn't go to plan;

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPgK9VPLT8I[/ame]

The 91ft Chimney is scheduled for demolition on November 1st.