Arqiva Tower

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 17/08/2015

SE21SW 554/1/10006 26-MAR-03

DENBY DALE, Emley Moor, JAGGER LANE (South,off), Arqiva Tower

(Formerly listed as ITV Broadcasting Tower)

II

Television mast, formerly known as the ITA Transmitting Tower. 1969-71 by Ove Arup and Partners for the Independent Television Authority. Reinforced concrete tower of slender proportions, tapering exponentially from a base diameter of 24.4m (80ft) to 6.5m (21ft 3in) at its top. The concrete section is 274m (900ft) high and is surmounted by an aerial casing of 56m (184ft), giving the tower a total height of 330m (1084ft). The wall thickness reduces from 533mm (1ft 9in) to 350mm (1ft 11/2in) over this height. The vertical curve of the walls was chosen to present and elegant profile and at the same time to be compatible with the distribution of vertical bending moment. The result was the tallest reinforced concrete structure in the United Kingdom on its completion.

The new Emley Moor television tower was built to replace a steel guyed mast erected in 1966 which collapsed at the site in 1969. Concrete was chosen as the main structural material for the replacement as it offered the only possibility of meeting the specification, and was relatively cheap. Good looks were considered important in this environmentally sensitive moorlands setting. `Television and microwave towers may have a purely technical "raison d'etre" like Ove Arup and Partners' tower on Emley Moor in Yorkshire, but they may also provide a tourist attraction or perform a symbolic function' (Architectural Review). It won a Concrete Society Special Mention in 1972. It is a building which combines perfect technical performance with architectural elegance in its supreme slenderness.

Sources Architectural Review, September 1971, p.190 Concrete, June 1972, p.49