Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

An electricity generating station was built in Tunbridge Wells in 1895 off Commercial Road. It was built by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council to provide public street lighting. It represents an early example of a local lighting generating station. The boiler house, coaling facilities and sidings have been cleared but the engine house remains.

Monument Types

• POWER STATION (Post Medieval to Modern - 1895 AD to 1990 AD?)

Full description

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Tunbridge Wells Electricity Generating Station, off Commercial Road, Tunbridge Wells TQ 5885 4030. Built by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council on a site adjacent to the railway and opened in October 1895 to provide public street lighting. An early example of local lighting generating station the boiler house, coaling facilities and sidings have been cleared but the engine house remains standing. Red brick with pitched roof and pair of roof ridge clerestoreys. Large bullseye in gable end and two tall doors. No windows along former boiler house side and single storey range on other side (former switch or battery house?). (1)

The building was considered for Listed Building status in 2021 but rejected. From Historic England's assessment report:

"History
From Michael Faraday’s discovery of magnetoelectric induction in 1831 to the introduction of the steam turbine in the 1890s, the C19 witnessed a series of technical innovations and developments in electric power generation. Four principal types of power house or power station had emerged in the late C19, mostly using steam engines, gas engines and by the turn of the century, increasingly, steam turbines. The first of these were power houses that served private houses or estates, a development pioneered hydroelectrically in 1878 at Cragside, Northumberland (Grade I-listed). The second were power stations which provided lighting and power for industrial concerns, such as steel mills, shipyards, coal mines and textile mills. Third, there were generating plants that powered street tramways and electric railways. And fourth, there were power stations built to serve the urban populace, mainly in the form of lighting. These were both privately or municipally operated, with private companies mostly supplying smaller towns, and municipal authorities providing for
larger towns and cities. Most were low-capacity, small, shed-like structures quickly erected – or adapted – for local supply. One of the earliest surviving electricity generating stations is 46 Kensington Court, London, (Grade II-listed), built in 1888 to supply electrical lighting to a development of middle-class houses and flats of the same name. By 1910 steam turbines had become the general form of prime mover and coal the dominant fuel. Lighting remained the dominant use of electricity but as supply became more reliable and extensive it was increasingly adopted for power applications (Historic England 2015, 2-5).

Tunbridge Wells was set up as an independent borough in 1889, and in 1892 the council decided to explore setting up a municipal electricity system. The Tunbridge Wells Power Station was inaugurated on 9 October1895 by the Mayor, Sir David Salomons (1851-1925), who was an engineer and Chairman of the City of London Electric Lighting Company (Heritage Open Days 2008). The Tunbridge Wells electricity system started with 400 consumers, which grew to 1,000 by 1900. It was originally equipped with two 75 kW alternators made by Johnson and Philips, coupled direct to two Williams engines which took the heavier evening load (Ibid). The daylight load was provided by a Stockport gas engine of 15 HP, coupled with a 15 kW alternator. In 1925, the system was upgraded to two turbines of 1875 kW generating power and in 1931 it was connected to the National Grid. The power station operated regularly during winter and to cover peak demand. In 1947, it passed out of borough control, when the electricity supply was nationalised. The power station finally closed in 1969, and the boiler house, cooling towers, chimney, coal facilities and sidings were subsequently demolished. However, the early C20 engine house remained extant. It was originally joined to a
boiler house, running parallel to it at the west, which had been demolished by 1973. The engine house building was used for storage by Trident Trailers Ltd from 1995 until recent years. It is currently unoccupied.

The former engine house is not shown on the 1898 OS map. There is a building on the site in 1909 but it is not clear if this is the current structure, which is first clearly depicted on the 1936 OS map. It is also shown in aerial photographs of 1953.

Details
Former engine house, built in the early C20 as part of an electricity generating power station.

MATERIALS: constructed from red brick with stone dressings, and a felt-covered roof.

PLAN: one long gabled rectangular range with an attached single-storey flat-roofed range on the south-west side.

EXTERIOR: a substantial gabled double-height range, about 40m long by 16m wide, with a single-storey range attached to the south-west. The main range is orientated north-east to south-west and lit by two monitors; raised structures running along the ridge of the double-pitched roof with clerestory windows to the sides and their own roofs running parallel with the main roof. The north-east gable end is framed by two brick piers or clasping buttresses at the angles and has two late C20 bifold doors beneath a huge oeil-de-boeuf (circular) window enriched with ashlar keystones. The brick piers have bands of corbelling towards the top and appear to have originally been surmounted by ball finials which survive at the south-west gable end. There is a moulded stone coping to the gable. A single-storey brick-built range is attached to the south-east. The north-west elevation is blind (without any windows) but has numerous plain brick pilasters running along its length and heavy corbelling beneath the eaves of the roof. The south-west elevation has an oeil-de-boeuf
window to the gable.

INTERIOR: photographs indicate that the interior is open to the roof which has a steel fink trussed roof structure. It is lit by two monitors with clerestory windows. There are round brick blind arcades beneath two bands of heavy corbelling to the north-west and south-east sides of the building and further brick arches to the gable ends. Part of the space is partitioned off, possibly as a former office, with late C20 timber doors and partition walls in disrepair"

GILL CHITTY, 2000, Electric Power Generation Step 4 Report (Unpublished document). SKE7880.

GILL CHITTY, 2000, Electric Power Generation Step 4 Report (Unpublished document). SKe7880.

<1> Not applicable, SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry, Site visit DC Eve 7/1995 (Miscellaneous Material). SKE6440.

Sources and further reading