Carrongrove Power Station, Denny – April ‘09

[wolfism]

Carrongrove Power Station, Denny – visited with Pincheck.







The power station was part of Inveresk’s Carrongrove papermill, and represented unfinished business. It was the only part we didn’t see when we explored the mill last year – here is the original thread, but it only shows a tiny fraction of the photos we took, as it was a large site rich with decay and period machinery. It’s still my favourite Scottish exploration. Anyhow, our previous visit ended abruptly with a scramble up a muddy hillside as a wee white van hurtled towards us from Denny.







This visit was more tranquil. Bright spring sunshine dappled the walls of the powerhouse, and birdsong carried across the Carron valley. In fact, you can almost see the river now, as the powerhouse sits on a cleared site. The rest of the mill has gone, and the demolition rubble has been crushed and driven in to create the formation level on which 170 new houses will soon be built by MacMic. The powerstation remains, looming up five storeys high, because asbestos remediation is ongoing, and workmen are erecting polythene tents inside. Ironically, despite sitting in a wasteland, the power station interior is still carefully ordered – with yellow tramlines painted on the floor, hand tools hung up on their boards and neatly sign-written notices. Detail freakery: of the various Inveresk mills I’ve explored, Carrongrove has the most elegant signs.







From the basement, with brittle pieces of coke crunching underfoot, through the dark undercroft of flues and ducts, up flight after flight of steel stairs to the head of the building, there’s still a hint of the acrid smell of burning coke. Carrongrove has shades of Inverkip about it – the boilers are not that much shorter, and the station was capable of powering a small town (because that’s how much power and process steam a big papermill consumes). When we reached the top level, a barn owl moved across the space like a ghost, and landed on a far gantry. Light filtered through glazing made green by the surrounding trees – the interior was probably brighter than it’s been at any time since it was built, as walls are no longer hemmed in by the mill’s acid tower and esparto shed. The gloom has lifted. Yet places like this which once hummed with machinery have a particular kind of stillness when they shut down, and that was palpable here.







This is the “new” Carrongrove Power Station: previously we’d explored the old boilerhouse, stripped of its steam boilers, but with grimy bunkers and antique Priestman coal grab were still intact. It sat immediately to the north, across the pend which split the site. The power station was rebuilt in 1960 and new steam plant installed, which was (apparently) designed to produce over 70,000 lb of steam pressure per hour. The brick chimney is far older. The plant was a major investment for Inveresk, and happened after a new managing director (Morgan Wallace) took control of the mill and launched a modernisation drive. Its heart consists of three Clarke Chapman boilers wrapped in steel gangways and stairs. They sit in a long, high hall, parallel to which is an equally long coal bunker overflown by a modern gantry crane equipped with a giant yellow grab. Tonka toy – excellent! Power isolated – damn! It dropped the coke through steel screens into giant hoppers, which fed the mechanical stokers of “International Combustion Co.” burners. Apparently the grates weigh around 150 tons each.







From the basement hearths, water rises four storeys through the boilers to become steam – some of it drove the turbo-generator, and some was bled off to heat the drying cylinders of the mill’s paper machines. The remainder was sent through steam mains to heat the workers’ housing at Fankerton, on the south side of the Carronbridge road. An early example of district heating – and the rusting pipes are still clearly visible poking out of the hillside. The boilers were fitted with “Electroflo” automatic controls, modernised at some point and a CCTV camera fitted so that big brother could watch the control panels from a remote location. A lot of the machinery was made locally – we spotted Howden “Sirocco” blowers – Weir Pumps circulators – and a remnant of Bertrams machinery – all carefully colour-coded. I stood for a long time on the boiler galleries, staring down 60 feet through the gaps in the diamond flowforge deck at the twists and turns of the “plumbing”; then a further while on the hall floor, gazing upwards and trying to trace the routes that the pipes followed. Soon to become 1000 tons of scrap iron …







Thanks again to Pincheck for prompting us to go back.

[boxfrenzy]

A really well written report, and some great pictures too. I like it.

[industry]

That is top drawer stuff Sir!! Brilliant

[Muse]

Excellent Fascinating report and cracking photography, you've really brought the place alive, can almost smell it.

[Thin Ice]

I wish there where things like this local enough to me :-(. This place looks great I could spend a weekend in something like that.

[BB]

Super!
That place is mega!

[sqwasher]

Superb write up & photos wolfism-makes for an excellent read. Really liking the look of this place! Top job!

[Sandman]

oh thats rather tasty and well captured

[foz101]

Is there a site you haven't revisited?!

Sometimes these extra bits magically open up eh? Nice one. Been meaning to catch up with you about other revisits but horribly busy atm.

[BA]

What a nice place
Some great pictures there