Thorpe Marsh Power Station - Urban Exploration in Doncaster, Yorkshire
Thorpe Marsh Power Station
Where - Doncaster, Yorkshire.
Visited - 23 September 2006.
Thorpe Marsh Power Station closed in 1994. Since then it has gradually been demollished. Well, everything except the cooling towers - 6 of them. The are also two biggish buildings (I have no idea what the were for) and several small buildings.
There are various plans for the site - including a nature reserve, and a landfill site (fiercely objected to by local residents). In reality, nothing will probably happen. The towers still survive because it is feared that any explosion caused would rupture the banks of the nearby canal.
Cooling Towers
The power station had six cooling towers. These are 340ft high and have a 260ft diameter at the base.
Somehow someone had written "TIVVY" at the top of one.
Inside one
Five of the cooling towers were stripped out. But they had an awesome echo. One had a crazy invisible bird in it which kept making (horrid) squarking noises..
The sixth was "complete" inside. Somehow this cools the hot water to an ambient temperature. I'm not exactly sure how, but Wikipedia knows.
Railway
There are a couple of sidings at Thorpe Marsh which were last used in 1994.
This building was used to unload coal wagons. They were opened and closed by machines apparently known as "daleks" (the yellow things).
The coal went into underground bunkers - these are now seriously flooded.
Pump Room
This was used for pumping water from the cooling towers into the nearby river.
Other buildings
There was one 5~6 storey high building. Couldn't get into it so don't actually know what it was for. It seemed to have some little coal hoppers in or something. And weird pipes on the side.
Reflections
Random bits
Flowers..
..and plants. Something a bit different 
Your Comments
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Posted 30 January 2007, 14:10 From Chris Bell
Nice pictures!
The "box" things at Thorpe Marsh are in fact the ash and dust silos. Pulverised fuel ash and precip. dust would have been pumped in as a slurry before being removed by lorrys which would have backed in underneath.
Posted 6 February 2007, 02:10 From Jeff Coles
Good pictures, and a nice record of social history...well done!
Posted 19 February 2007, 23:10 From Steve Johnson
Those were the days!
Even as a Manager at large multi nationals I have not found anywhere else I could have a trailer buil;t from scratch in one night shift and drive it home in the morning. Great workmates well remembered.
Posted 28 February 2007, 04:00 From Gary Yates
The daleks weere operated once the loco had gone past them, they only unlocked the safety catches on the wagons, once empty the loco would detach and return up the other line. The other type of darlek would close the wagon doors and put the safety catches back on. I know because this had been my first job in 1987. Regards.
Posted 7 May 2007, 05:00 From Kerry Nesbitt
Just for clarity the 5/6 story building was in fact the dry dust silo, the pipes up the side were for pneumatic conveying the dry dust collected from the precips, the dry dust was mixed with water before loading into lorries.
The coal ground hoppers also filled with coal/water slurry occasionally while the place was open!
A small note in line with Steve - the quality of wrought iron work was superb boiler tube repairs however left a lot to be desired.
Best regard to all who worked there.
Posted 21 May 2007, 21:50 From danny
it would be great 2 see it in motion
Posted 27 June 2007, 14:40 From Graham Nicholson
My Dad used to work at this PowerStation, I remember as a young lad my dad took us up to the control room it seemed really cool at the time, the noise in the generator room was tremendous. I've also been in these cooling towers when they were fully operationally and they were amazing. At weekends or on holidays we often played snooker in the games room.
Posted 4 July 2007, 21:50 From Dave Turner.
I worked in IMD at Thorpe Marsh from 1964 to 1966. Remember Colln Baker, Mr Lewellyn, Geoff Burgin, Dick Alderton, Chalkey White, and many more. Any pics, please, of the time. I lived in Kirk Sandal.
Posted 15 July 2007, 20:30 From Matt Robson
Worked at Thorpe marsh from 1966 to 1974.
Llewellyn, Reg Andrews, Roy Web, Phil Pashley, Bill Gunn. All memories and good ones. Lived in South Africa since 1974.
Posted 16 October 2007, 16:10 From Gordon Cameron
Nice to see some pics of Thorpe Marsh. I spent a couple of years working there in the early 70's. The yellow things on the sidings automatically pulled a lever on the coal trucks & opened a door in the bottom of it to empty the coal out without the train stopping, it was slow moving though.
Posted 21 November 2007, 00:00 From Tom Bodley
This power station features in the short sci-fi drama series called "The Last Train".
It plays host to the "ark" (secret underground bunker for the survivors of the apocalypse).
Just thought you might like to know. Your pics are excellent, keep up the good work.
Posted 17 December 2007, 19:20 From Dave Turner.
Hello again,
it seems so dificult to get any pictures of the plant when it was running. Those huge ICL boilers, and the cross compound Parsons turbine. Does any one remember the night when the charge engineer, because he could not see the drum level falling, caused a huge boiler tube failure. Was there realy a "Reuben Skeland" working there at this time? I seem to remember so!
Posted 25 December 2007, 02:10 From danny broome
how deep is it
Posted 22 March 2008, 15:40 From graham robert wood
When the site is eventually developed, will someone please consider doing the same to the golf course.
Posted 26 March 2008, 10:10 From Dave Turner.
I am still longing to hear from someone who has pictures of the station inside the boiler or turbine houses, or both. I lived in Kirk Sandall when I worked at the station, in Windermere Road.I learned a lot from a IMD foreman who lived accross from me, mame, Spike Hughes. If any one has pics, please leave a contact adress. Thank's. Dave Turner. Somerset.
Posted 3 May 2008, 00:00 From bagredredapp
When my days I was and climb I go back other things things. and climb reaction
Posted 14 May 2008, 18:40 From luke
climb nto the un gutted tower
Posted 28 May 2008, 13:00 From Gunhappyhippy
Absolutely cracking site mate, I love the Thorpe Marsh shots, they are great. We are going this week to pay it a visit, see how that turns out.
Keep snapping my friend,
Paul
Posted 28 May 2008, 13:00 From Gunhappyhippy
The depth of focus on this is spot on.. crispy clear right through the shot.
Posted 23 June 2008, 03:10 From Mark_Morecambe
Great work guys... 'The Last Train' was one of the gloomiest TV series i ever saw. apart from the (so much better) 70's Terry Nation series 'Survivors'. Love 'em.
i dabbled a little with UE years ago.... this got me considering a few more explorations. love the Yoiutube bit too.. catch the one where someone is filming away when the damn thing is operating too.. very creepy. great. love to see one in operation, and pop my head through the door.. love to hear it too. always wanted to explore an old gasometer in Clitheroe years ago (it had windows in it!) but they pulled it. take care guys.. hope you find more sites.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:00 From gary.yates
Gordon is correct in saying that the yellow items at the side of the track do play a part in the unloading of coal, however they only activated the safety catch on the coal wagons. The doors on the wagons were opened by two coal plant APA'S using a wooden club, at the end of the unloading shed the were more that closed the wagon doors when the loco moved forward and applied the safety catches. The loco travelled at 3-4mph
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:10 From gary.yates
This dolly closed the coal wagon doors, the handle of the door moved over the cam forcing the handle upwards thus closing the door, the second dolly applied the safety catch. Each wagon had three compartment, A single door front and rear, and double doors in the center. Each train pulled around 1000tonnes of coal.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:20 From gary.yates
The gap in the concrete is where the coal poored from the coal wagons when the doors had been opened. The coal fell into a large V shaped hopper, coal paddle feeders feed the coal from both sides of the hopper onto convyers. Then went to the No1 transfer tower. From here it could be sent to stock for later use, to the coal bunkers in unit 1 and unit 2 boiler houses, in combination
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:30 From gary.yates
This is cooler tower 1B, the valve in the picture is a 78" cooling water isolation valve that feed cooling water from the cooling water pumps to the condensers on unit 1
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:30 From gary.yates
the two domes in the water are suction pipes for the cooling water pumps, each unit had 4. The Tbar in the top right of the picture in the suction chamber water level. 27' 9" if my memory is correct.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:40 From gary.yates
The two buildiings in the middle are unit 1 on the left and unit 2 on the right, fly ash dust silo's. Fine ash that was carried over in the flue gas from the boiler was collected in electrostatis prosipators, then transfered to the silo's.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:40 From gary.yates
Fly ash from the boilers travel through these pipes into the dust silo's.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:40 From gary.yates
I think what you can see on this photo is two of the four cooling water pumps.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:40 From gary.yates
Borehole switch board, thorpe marsh had it's own well, but almost all the water came from the the river Don.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:50 From gary.yates
Support beams where added in 1990.
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:50 From gary.yates
Repair work on unit 1 cooling towers again in 1990
Posted 6 September 2008, 11:50 From gary.yates
This is unit 2 cooling towers racking, used to break up the cooling water into droplets, unlike unit 1 cooling towers wich had plastic type packing, unit 2 lats were made from treated wood.
Posted 6 October 2008, 14:10 From Faz
great site to investigate, been on thorpe marsh a few times with the camera and got some great images. no security to mention so been free to roam
Posted 10 November 2008, 21:40 From Dan D
The steps would have led down to a room which would have contained some paddle feeders to push the coal onto conveyor belts, these would take the coal either straight into the power station or out to the coal heap for storage.
Posted 10 November 2008, 21:50 From Dan D
This looks like the plastic packing from inside the cooling towers, the water is sprayed over the packing and breaks up into droplets which give up their heat easier.
Posted 10 November 2008, 21:50 From Dan D
The ash from the boilers would have been taken away either by train or road to be used in the construction and road building industry
Posted 13 June 2009, 19:20 From Charles Antony Walker
I was a Maintenance Fitter Mechanical from 66/71. I was also a member of Doncaster Bird
Club. My Brother in Law Keith Parker and I visited the reserve many times happy days. I now live in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario Canada. But this year I am spending time in the U.K. and
will be visiting this reserve. Good Luck to all Tony
Posted 15 June 2009, 10:20 From sarah
hello there just one question how did you get on the site with there being so many camras and locked gates i have drove passed and its all locked up are you able to have a look or do you have to have permsion
many thanks
Posted 2 August 2009, 20:50 From andi
just been there 07/2009 much the same is a awesome place still well worth a look round if your in the area