Main Building At Central Electricity Generating Board Ferrybridge A Site

KNOTTINGLEY OLD GREAT NORTH ROAD SE42SE (north side, off) 5/38 Main building at CEGB - Ferrybridge 'A' site. - II Power station; now offices, laboratories, and workshops. 1926, for Yorkshire Electric Power Company; altered. Red brick in English bond, with dressing of white terracotta. Rectangular plan containing turbine hall and boiler house as coupled receding wings to a front office block. In C20 classical style, the bays defined by giant pilasters of brick which have roll-moulded terracotta bases and capitals, with terracotta plinth and entablature. The symmetrical south front of 9 bays and 4 storeys has a full- height porch (the entrance hall and staircase) with clasping pilasters, the doorway in the plinth (with revolving doors), square overlight above, with terracotta architrave and cornice; and above this, a giant round-headed stair window which has a terracotta architrave with keystones, and iron glazing bars making 3 lights and many small panes. The 4 bays to each side contain similar 3-light windows divided into 4 diminishing stages (7,6,6, and 3 panes), with high transoms; but the outer bays have lorry doorways at ground floor (perhaps original, but that on the left enlarged vertically and horizontally); plain frieze of square tiles, and prominent dentilled cornice; flat roof (formerly 4 very tall chimneys to boiler house on right, now removed). Pilastered return walls, the 1st being the side of the office block, vertically divided by a brick strip, with fenestration matching the front; otherwise, the west return wall is of 7 wider bays, the east return wall of 8 bays, both with full-height fenestration above ground floor but the east side with square windows and some doorways at ground floor. Rear altered by additions. Interior: former turbine hall (now workshop) on west side is of full height, with inner steel frame supporting overhead cranes; former boiler house on east side now partitioned vertically and horizontally as offices; open-well staircase in porch, on steel bearers, with lift to rear.

Listing NGR: SE4819424741