Powerhouse, Lochaber Hydroelectric Scheme

William Halcrow, supervising engineer; Balfour Beatty general engineers, 1929. Deep single-storey, roughly 25-bay, rectangular-plan powerhouse of red brick with some carved sandstone panels. Part of large high-head hydro-electric scheme which supplies electricity to adjacent aluminium smelter. Red brick with some sandstone ashlar dressings. Pilastered with band course at upper ground floor (on brick corbels above main doorway) and banded eaves course with blocking course to corners. Large opening to far left (N) with metal roller door, fielded sandstone panel above inscribed THE LOCHABER POWER COMPANY. Adjacent single bay return with pilastered and corniced sandstone ashlar pedestrian doorway in recessed round arched surround with scrolled panel dated 1929 and inscribed LPC, to arch. W elevation roughly 25 pilastered bays each containing tall keystoned round arched multi-pane windows with deep sandstone ashlar transoms to top. Banded base and eaves courses (eaves corbelled between pilasters). Penstocks with control valves run perpendicular to W elevation.

INTERIOR: plain interior with decorative tiled floor, painted and plastered interior brick walls. Travelling crane on steel buttresses, steel lattice roof trusses.