Coventry Power Station

Those cooling towers had a central pipe that took boiling water to the top, then spilled out over slatted boards, so cooling the water until it ran through a pipe into a concrete tray under a concrete bridge in the towpath, and back into the canal. In the picture you can see coal wagons shunting through the circular ring, that clamped round the coal wagon, turned turtle and emptied the coal onto a conveyor belt, then turned upright and the train proceeded. The bridge-like conveyer belt took the coal up and over the canal to a storage field.

These towers were the ones still in use when I was started there in the early 1970's. I didn't go into those towers, but did go into some at other power stations around the UK. Most of them were re-circulating systems for the cooling water and the hot water only went about a third of the way up the tower before cascading down the slatted boards into the pond at the base of the tower. The top two thirds acted as a venturi to increase the updraft and cooling effect of the tower. During a long hot dry summer, I think it was 1976, power stations around the UK passed river water through the towers to aerate the water to protect the river fish and plant life. I vividly remember the "world within a world" feeling I experienced inside the towers, a peaceful, humid, warm environment with ferns and the like growing around the top of the wooden slats. It reminded me of "The Lord of The Rings".

Earlsdon Kid. In 1940 the power station closed for a few days, lack of water. The bomb skidded by the side of those towers, hit the canal bank and drained the canal to Tusses Bridge. I'm not sure what happened after that, we left the area at the end of the war. The water was still warm when it left the towers, formed into a concrete pool before entering the canal, that we kids learnt to swim in, despite the green slime that collected on the concrete.

The old part of the power station was being dismantled when I started in 1970 and the second stage was still operating but was nearing the end of it's life by the mid 1970's. Good place for swimming lessons in the warm water and no doubt built up you immunity against the green slime!

It was indeed 1976, EK. I remember us having no rain for two months, then one afternoon, when it started to rain, albeit a bit, people ran outside and rejoiced. I suppose the Coventry power station/s are a relic of times when every power station was privately owned and served only its own town or area. As a kid, I thought Coventry power station only powered Coventry. Of course, I did not know that power stations feed the national grid.

Oh gosh, 20A, I have been looking for that evidence ever since the bomb dropped, thought I would never see it, and here it is. Can't tell you how much that means to me, so much thanks, really do appreciate this, and described exactly how I knew it, even the third bomb hit the coal stacks, just missing the cooling towers.

I've spent a few hours reading 100s of pages trying to find some information regarding the Army ammunition depot that was on Deedmore Rd. I have found out when it closed and that the Coventry Corporation took over the site, but that is all. The article popped-up on one of the pages.

Hi 20A-Manor House, The ammunition depot is shown on Old-maps.co.uk. It seems to have appeared during the Second World War as it is on the 1950 map, but not the 1938 map. The site is now Alpha Business Park (industrial estate) opposite Lillington Avenue. The army buildings are shown on the 1974 & 1980 map as "works". By 1992 the industrial estate had been built.

August 1958:

I have to say, that's a super photo 20A-Manor House. The contrast between industrial grime, nature and carefree leisure is great. Is it one of yours?

Hi Fourmilier. Not taken by me, one and a half years before I was born. Newspaper picture.

20A-Manor House That picture almost has me in tears. All I can see is boats rolling into the middle, kids and women screaming, kids and men leaping into the water, trying to hold the boats upright, the noise deafening from the guns, ropes splitting the water rushing away, dragging, trying to roll the boats downstream, five or six of them. A more helpless scene you could not imagine, one well aimed bomb had breached the canal at Sutton Stop, water ran away at top speed. Luckily no one died, it was like that for three days, no water in the canal.