Pumping Station

CHESTER CITY (EM)

SJ4065 CASTLE DRIVE 1932-1/8/32 (South side) Pumping Station

II

Hydro-electric generating station, now water company's pumping station. 1912-13. For Chester City Council, whose Electrical Engineer was SE Britton: consultant engineer for the hydro-electric station AC Hurtzig; proposed building designed under supervision of SE Britton, but re-design more harmonious with the adjoining Old Dee Bridge prepared by the Chester and North Wales Architectural Society (accepted by the Electricity Committee 1.5.1912). Coursed tooled red sandstone. EXTERIOR: one storey to Castle Drive, flat roof. The simple front has unpierced stone face to generator hall inscribed in raised letters on a long stone panel CITY OF CHESTER HYDRO-ELECTRIC POWER STATION : A.D. MCMXIII. A small ashlar entrance tower, right, has oak 3-leaf folding doors of 3 fielded panels in a Tudor-arched opening; stone parapet. The west side to the river has leaded lancet in tower, 3 buttressed bays with a pointed-arched spillway in the first and recessed pointed-arched panels of stone in the second and third; a weathered string; 2 pairs of leaded lancets to each bay; a shorter blank end-bay. The east side is similarly expressed, but with steel eel-traps to inlets and steel walkway. The south end has a massive walkway-plinth with sluice, right. Above the plinth a pair of boarded oak doors with postern in a broad pointed archway. INTERIOR not inspected. The power station stands on the site of the medieval Mills of Dee. (Chester City Council and Committees: Electricity and Improvement Committee Minutes: 1911-1913: PASSIM).

Listing NGR: SJ4067065802