Electricity Generating House At Orchard House

This is an electricity generating house, built around 1904. It is constructed of brick with stone dressings and has a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof.

The west gable features stone dressings around the quoins and openings, with horizontal bands of stone at regular intervals. A half-glazed door sits below the eaves, above which is a large pointed arched window with simple tracery in the upper half. The south elevation has a long window in the western half and a similar half-glazed door at its eastern end.

The interior is now used for storage and contains a planked partition wall and ceiling. Vestigial remains of electrical wiring are still visible.

Orchard House itself was converted from two 18th-century houses, numbered 67 and 69 High Street, in 1904 for Joseph William Mann, then Olney’s largest employer. The architect was Alexander Ellis Anderson. Historical maps indicate that the site of the electricity generating house was previously occupied by a building, and Orchard House was the first dwelling in Olney to be supplied with electricity.

The building is designated at Grade II for its chapel-like form and attention to detail, which underscore the importance of its original purpose, and for being a rare early surviving example of housing for a private electricity generator. It also exhibits group value with the Grade II*-listed Orchard House.