Council Depot

TQ4578 WHITE HART ROAD 786/22/10132 Plumstead 22-DEC-2000 Council Depot

II

Former electricity generating station, subsequently council depot. 1903 by Mitchell and Sumner. Red brick with stone dressings, slate roof. Complex plan, with main hall flanked on one side by offices, with smaller halls on the other side served by ramp. Halls mainly with round-arched windows in stone surrouds with keystones; some flat-headed windows, also with keystones, and metal glazing bars. Pilasters to blind side walls with bands of stonework; glazed clerestory and single chimney to side. Large round stone arch over double doors in three-bay end walls, with gable window. Offices a symmetrical compostion of two storeys and attic, with tall stacks, pyramidal roof and high pointed dormers with stone mouldings. Five bay frontage with central door in Gibbs surround. Timber sash windows with small panes to upper sashes and keystones, those to ground floor linked by elaborate stone band. A similar baroque serves as a cornice. Stone corners. It is flanked by two-bay single-storey side wings, with flat roofs and similar corner decorations. These have round-arched tripartite windows.

Interiors. Main generating hall has tiled interior with blue and red tiled dado, white tiles above, and articulated by blind arcade and pilasters. Steel truss roof and clerestory. Full-width overhead travelling crane. Second hall has brick walls painted white under similar steel truss roof and clerestory; the third hall is thought to be an addition, is floored, and has been subdivided. Long ramp up to this third hall, with offices underneath, their windows of metal glazing under flat concrete heads.

Elaborate interiors to office block, with flat balustered timber stair, double doors in timber surround with decorative coloured glazing. Offices with timber doors in eared surrounds, and with fireplaces.

The large site was openend in 1903 as a combined refuse incinerator and electricity generating station, supplying street lighting and domestic interiors. Power generation ceased in 1923, incineration in 1965. Its architecture survives substantially intact, complete with its fine offices, and is a good example of an early power station, while the combined incineration use is novel. Save that the chimney has gone, this is a very well preserved power station for this early date.

Sources

The Industrial Archaeology of South East London, Goldsmith's College Industrial Archaeology Group, 1982.

Darrell Spurgeon, Discover Woolwich and its Environs, London, 19990