Advert issued by the Alphons Custodis Chimney Construction Co., London showing the stacks at the "Chelsea Power House", Lots Road, London, c1905
"Just you hang on to that lightning conductor". A fine advert for the marvellously titled Alphons Custodis Chimney Construction Co of London showing their achievements at the Lots Road generating station at construction in c1904/5. They boasted that these stacks were the largest pair of such erections in the world at the time and the top photo certainly gives an idea of the scale of the construction.
I have actually been very close to these stacks, or what remains of them as they were latterly shortened, when doing roof inspections at Lots Road when, in the 1990s, it was still generating power for the London Underground prior to closure. At the time it was one of the world's oldest extant generating sites - although closed, and supposedly to be redeveloped keeping some elements of the main hall and chimneys, that record passed to another early site that it still in use by LU at Greenwich Power Station. Lots Road was constructed for the Underground Electric Railways of London, the concern that was the child of Charles Tyson Yerles, the US financier who developed the three deep tube projects comprising the core of today's Bakerloo, Northern and Piccadilly lines as well as modernising and electrifying the thne steam operated District Railway. The UERL went on to be the dominant founding 'member' of London Transport and Lots Road was of massive importance to many areas of LT's operations.
The Alfons Custodis comapny was, I suspect, a US concern although they appear to have had branches here in the UK and in Canada. By 1924 they had produced a fine volume entitled "Radial Chimney Cosntruction" but I can find out little else about them. The use of US contractors and technology was one of the hallmarks of Yerkes investment in London's Underground.
Advert issued by the Alphons Custodis Chimney Construction Co., London showing the stacks at the "Chelsea Power House", Lots Road, London, c1905
"Just you hang on to that lightning conductor". A fine advert for the marvellously titled Alphons Custodis Chimney Construction Co of London showing their achievements at the Lots Road generating station at construction in c1904/5. They boasted that these stacks were the largest pair of such erections in the world at the time and the top photo certainly gives an idea of the scale of the construction.
I have actually been very close to these stacks, or what remains of them as they were latterly shortened, when doing roof inspections at Lots Road when, in the 1990s, it was still generating power for the London Underground prior to closure. At the time it was one of the world's oldest extant generating sites - although closed, and supposedly to be redeveloped keeping some elements of the main hall and chimneys, that record passed to another early site that it still in use by LU at Greenwich Power Station. Lots Road was constructed for the Underground Electric Railways of London, the concern that was the child of Charles Tyson Yerles, the US financier who developed the three deep tube projects comprising the core of today's Bakerloo, Northern and Piccadilly lines as well as modernising and electrifying the thne steam operated District Railway. The UERL went on to be the dominant founding 'member' of London Transport and Lots Road was of massive importance to many areas of LT's operations.
The Alfons Custodis comapny was, I suspect, a US concern although they appear to have had branches here in the UK and in Canada. By 1924 they had produced a fine volume entitled "Radial Chimney Cosntruction" but I can find out little else about them. The use of US contractors and technology was one of the hallmarks of Yerkes investment in London's Underground.