I have delved way back into my Flickr archives for this photograph taken from the Wrekin.  It was taken on a nice morning walk with colleauges and friends.

Unfortunately I am unable to upload any photographs today due to a problem with my internet connection. It is slower than dial up!! Originally I thought it was my PC that was the problem because outlook kept freezing in ’send and receive’ mode and webpages wouldn’t load and kept resetting and giving me error messages.

I thought my laptop was working fine but when I tried to upload photos I realised that it too was slow, just not timing out…

On the plus side it was a lovely sunny day here. Just the thing for a BBQ and a glass of wine after work. This was followed by me sitting on the patio reading and soaking up the last rays of the sun before it dropped too chilly and I had to come inside.

Hopefully on the internet front, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible…

This photograph depicts the  cooling towers of Ironbrige B power station, which was designed to blend in with it’s surroundings:

Project architect Alan Clark worked closely with landscape architect Kenneth Booth, in order to ensure that the station merged as seamlessly as possible into its natural surroundings.^[1] In this respect, the power station is unique amongst British coal-fired stations. When viewed from Ironbridge, the surroundings of the station are hidden by wooded hills. The cooling towers were deliberately constructed using concrete to which a red pigment had been added, to blend with the colour of the local soil. This had cost £11,000 in the 1960s. The towers cannot be seen at all from the world famous landmark, The Iron Bridge. The station’s single 205 m (673 ft) high chimney is fifth tallest chimney in the UK. It is the tallest structure in Shropshire, as well as being taller than Blackpool Tower and London’s BT Tower.^[5]

The station’s turbine hall is decoratively clad in chipped granite faced concrete panels, aluminium sheeting, and glazing. The turbine hall obscures the rather more functional metal clad boiler house from view. A free-standing administration block continues the theme of concrete panelling, albeit with extensive use of large floor to ceiling windows.^[1] Period fittings within the administration block include a board room, containing murals that reference the industries of the Ironbridge Gorge, and a grand entrance hall with a metallic mural.

So impressive were the measures taken to ensure that the power station was an asset to the gorge and not an eyesore, that it was short listed for a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors/The Times conservation award in 1973.^[1]

Click here for a photograph that I took a few years ago that shows the complete power station from the other direction.  I will let you judge for yourselves whether or not the architect achieved his aim in merging the structure into the surrounding landscape.