British Industrial & Engineering Installations, Mitchell Engineering group, 1946 : Portishead Power Station, Somerset
From the 1946 catalogue issued by the Mitchell Engineering group, a company whose interests spanned a wide range both the manufacturing of many types of engineering equipment as well as constructing and fitting out industrial and commercial buildings and structures. One of their areas of expertise was in electricity generating where they made boilers, fuel handling an ash disposal equipment.
Seen here is a contract undertaken for the pre-nationalisation municipal electricity undertaking of Bristol City Council. The City Council had started to generate electricity in 1891 but by the mid-1920s the two original stations, within the city, were proving too small and increasingly obsolete. Construction at the dockside site at Portishead began in 1926 and the station was commissioned in 1929. As a 'selected' station it provided power to the National Grid under the control of the Central Electricity Board. In 1937 the station underwent partial reconstruction including the erection of this single chimney stack, seen here, to replace the original six seperate steel ones. It was, in post war years, joined by Portishead "B" station, at which point this became "A" and after a short period following conversion to oil firing after local coal fields became exhausted and closed, A station ceased generation in 1976 with demolition of the chimneys taking place in the early 1980s - B station closed in 1982.
British Industrial & Engineering Installations, Mitchell Engineering group, 1946 : Portishead Power Station, Somerset
From the 1946 catalogue issued by the Mitchell Engineering group, a company whose interests spanned a wide range both the manufacturing of many types of engineering equipment as well as constructing and fitting out industrial and commercial buildings and structures. One of their areas of expertise was in electricity generating where they made boilers, fuel handling an ash disposal equipment.
Seen here is a contract undertaken for the pre-nationalisation municipal electricity undertaking of Bristol City Council. The City Council had started to generate electricity in 1891 but by the mid-1920s the two original stations, within the city, were proving too small and increasingly obsolete. Construction at the dockside site at Portishead began in 1926 and the station was commissioned in 1929. As a 'selected' station it provided power to the National Grid under the control of the Central Electricity Board. In 1937 the station underwent partial reconstruction including the erection of this single chimney stack, seen here, to replace the original six seperate steel ones. It was, in post war years, joined by Portishead "B" station, at which point this became "A" and after a short period following conversion to oil firing after local coal fields became exhausted and closed, A station ceased generation in 1976 with demolition of the chimneys taking place in the early 1980s - B station closed in 1982.