Dimco Machine Tools

333/1/22 WOOD LANE 20-SEP-88 Dimco Machine Tools

II

Former electricity generating station. 1898-9 for Central London Railway. Harry Bell Measures FRIBA, architect, with Horace Field Parshall, engineer. Red and pink brick, iron roofs, stone coping to parapet. Two adjoining single-height gable-ended sheds, comprising the former boiler house to the west and the former power generating house to the east. EXTERIOR: West shed of five bays in length, divided with piers, with arched cast-iron windows (some blocked) below a dentilled brick cornice; five bay north and south elevations with two lunette windows at lower level, and three arch headed openings within the gable. Behind the west shed, connected by a single storey building, are two chimney bases, of blue and red brick with stone dressings, to the north of the westernmost shed; chimney shafts taken down in c.1928. East shed of eleven bays in length, with five bay elevations to north and south; south elevation has a pair of arched windows at ground floor level below three arch headed openings within the gable; north elevation has two orders of arch-headed windows at ground floor level and three arch headed openings within the gable. INTERIOR: west shed (former boiler house) has a plain interior with double rows of supports to the iron roof trusses. East shed (former generating house) has iron roof trusses, walls faced in glazed green, brown and yellow brick, a mobile gantry crane, a switch gallery with double stairs, balustrade and iron columns, and offices to rear. HISTORY: These buildings were originally used as the engine house and boiler house of the Wood Lane generating station which supplied energy for the Central Line. They now constitute the earliest extant example of an electricity generating station built for the London Underground Railway system. The generating station closed in 1928 and the building was later used by the Dimco power tool company.

Listing NGR: TQ2340580355