Ratcliffe Power Station

[Limey 242]

I'm sure many of us remember Ratcliffe Power Station being built. I believe there was a lot of opposition to it, even back then and, from where I grew up, it certainly came to dominate the landscape. I think there were dire warnings that Nottingham would be covered in soot and ash!

My dad worked there from the mid 60's until he retired. He originally worked for the structural painters - one of the contractors engaged to build the plant, but when it was commissioned he got a job with the CEGB. He was pretty well known around the plant. He helped organise the Sports & Social Club, and was very active in the bowls club. I also worked there during a summer holiday when I was at Long Eaton Grammar School. I worked with the electricians!

Even now, when I pay a visit to England, I know I am home when driving up the M1 I get my first glimpse of the chimney at "my dad's" power station. It can be seen from a fair distance to the south, almost as soon as you pass through Charnwood Forest and begin the descent onto the Trent valley.

Does anybody else have memories of the place - or did you work there?

[Beefsteak 305]

Sorry Eric, no early memories . But as you say , after a long arduous drive (More than likely London and back!!) it was great to see it as you came over the "Charnwood rise" knowing you were on the last stretch and only 40 minutes from base (It'd be a bit longer than that nowadays!!)

We also had a trip round there when at school , and I loved standing beneath the cooling towers, reaping the benifits on a very hot early summer day.

[Cliff Ton 10,457]

I'm sure many of us remember Ratcliffe Power Station being built.

Does anybody else have memories of the place - or did you work there?

Not a direct memory, but a couple of slightly-connected memories

In the early 1960s I can remember going with my mum, dad and sister for an afternoon out/picnic and we ended up in the hilly area around Gotham Woods. I don't think I knew exactly where we were at that time, but I remember getting up to the top of the hill at the back of the woods and looking out at the massive wide view to the west, and seeing the Power Station being built over in the middle distance. It looked big even then, and it was probably only half finished.

My other memory is actually nothing to do with the Power Station, but the road it is situated on. I can just about remember when the A453, at the Clifton end, was not much more than a typical country lane. Going along there with a few friends on bikes (try doing that now) and up ahead we could see Gypsy caravans parked at the side of the road. We didn't have the courage to go past them at close quarters so we turned round and went back home. The reason we were spooked is because it was very quiet and remote, and if the gypsies had come out to grab us there was no-one else around. Imagine that now on the 453.

[Limey 242]

Cliff - it was not even the A453 back then - it was a country lane. The first revision was making the road from the power station to the M1 roundabout at Kegworth, so you didn't have to drive through Kegworth to get to the plant. The story at the time was that they built the road in order to get the transformers (built in Loughborough) into the plant! At that time, the A453 still ran through Castle Donington and Long Eaton!

Originally, there were two access roads to the plant, the main one which is still in roughly the same location, but there was another one to the west side of the site. On that road was a farm that sold free-range eggs, and my dad would buy eggs from there. They were all huge, brown and every one was a double-yolk - about one in twenty had a triple yolk! Delicious - and amazing!

I had my 21st birthday party at Ratcliffe Sports & Social Club. One of my school friends (Cookie, where are you?) borrowed his dads VW to attend - and proceeded to roll it over at the M1 roundabout on his way home!

[Owdtite 2]

I had a few stretches of working at Ratcliffe in the 70's, I contracted on most of the Trent Valley stations at some time or other, and also a lot further afield. I worked for a number of firms at the time but the one that looked after me the best was called William Press and Son, I also did work for International Combustion and Babcox and Wilcox.

Our work was mainly in the summer shutdown periods but you could make enough money to have the rest of the year off. Dangerous work, no H&S in those days, dreadful on the lungs and by the time I was 30 I gave it all up.

One thing that always sticks in my mind is that on payday (Wed) some of the Lads would go into the cabin after work and get a card school going, I have seen grown men come out of there crying their eyes out cos they had no wages to take home to the Missus!!

My first ever contract on a PS was at Willington, it was a 3 month contract but I ended up being there for 2 years.

Happy days yes, good craic but not healthy at all, broken bones and lungs full of PF dust and asbestos took their toll on me!!

Owdtite.... !tanning! ...I much prefer retirement..lol

[poohbear 1,360]

The whole area was my playground as a kid...bird nesting and paddling in the Soar at Ratcliffe.A mate found some Roman coins at Redhill near where the power station is now.Happy days with no pylons...no traffic rumble from the M1 or low flying aircraft.Just the bats flitting round on warm summer nights in the pitch dark.And once a year the Kingston Show to look forward to.

And for railway nuts...From Kegworth station to Nottingham was tenpence halfpenny single or tenpence return...and yes, I have got that the right way round..

[Cliff Ton 10,457]

Cliff - it was not even the A453 back then - it was a country lane. The first revision was making the road from the power station to the M1 roundabout at Kegworth, so you didn't have to drive through Kegworth to get to the plant. The story at the time was that they built the road in order to get the transformers (built in Loughborough) into the plant! At that time, the A453 still ran through Castle Donington and Long Eaton!

You're absolutely right - I was forgetting the A453 used to be somewhere else. I've dug out an old map from around (I think) the 1920s and scanned in the area in question. It shows your point about the lack of direct roads to and from the site of the Power Station. Follow the road from Thrumpton to Ratcliffe to Kegworth; not exactly direct

[poohbear 1,360]

Cycled those old roads many times to and from Nottingham in the fifties and sixties...never noticed that before though...Just below Gotham is 'Paradise'???

[littlebro 234]

The A453 was the Nottingham-to-Ashby de la Zouche truck road. It originally came out of Nottingham along Derby Road to the top of Adams Hill. At the Wollaton Park gates on Derby Road it cut through what is not the University campus on Beeston Lane, travelled trough Beeston High Road to Long Eaton, Sawley etc. Later, it was diverted from the High Road to pass along Queens Road, Beeston.

The Queens Road-to-Sawley section was de-trunked as recently as the 1980's and the route transferred to Clifton Bridge and out to Junction 24.

The road is not up to the traffic it hosts. There are many accidents around the power station and sadly a few fatalities. There are plans to widen the A453 which is desperately needed but opposed by some Clifton residents and the scheme appears to have fallen victim to the current austerity cuts.

[Limey 242]

I think that map is even older than 1920 - look at the size of East Leake compared to West Leake! Pretty amazing how it all has changed. Not always for the better I think!

[littlebro 234]

The map is post 1900 as it shows the GCR.

It does not show the Chilwell depot sidings that were laid in the Great War.

It also see the Lenton Abbey estate which I think are post Great War.

Like many maps, it is probably a hybrid of an earlier map with selected but incomplete updates.

Still, a good map though.

[Beefsteak 305]

Cycled those old roads many times to and from Nottingham in the fifties and sixties...never noticed that before though...Just below Gotham is 'Paradise'???

It was put there for those cycling the old roads to and from Nottingham in the fifties and sixties who couldn't find the loo's to enable them to have an East or West Leake !!!..................

I can also remember the A 453 changing routes to run out through Clifton. I would suggest that this occurred possibly as late as 1987/8!!

As for the Clifton/ M1 stretch being over burdened, there was talk of it being "dueled up " long before it took on the extra mantle of the A 453. Led by Councilor Brandon Bravo ... IMMSC

[poohbear 1,360]

I can't understand why the people of Clifton object to the road widening of the M1 route.The houses were built set back in the first place to allow for this,and those buying their council houses knew it.The swathe of land was left there alongside the single carriageway and should be widened as intentioned.

A bit like the land intended for a new road through Bestwood to the North, up Edwards Lane and Beckhampton Road, to avoid the jams in Daybrook.This stood without houses on the estate for many years but is now built on as the plans were shelved.

The widening and dual carriageway of the A52 Derby Road from the Priory island to Bramcote years ago.Led to many of the posh houses without a front garden and within feet of the road.They didn't have the advantage of being built further back to allow for increased road traffic.

[Cliff Ton 10,457]

...never noticed that before though...Just below Gotham is 'Paradise'???

I wonder if it's connected in some way to the location directly west of it, referred to as "Winking House"

Different topic.........I've looked all over the original map (the whole thing is called 'Vale of Trent') and there's no indication of a published date. But look at the area around Wilford and you'll see there is something marked as Elec. Sta. i.e. Wilford Power Station; and that was built in the early 1920s

[poohbear 1,360]

A site on Gotham mentions a Paradise Farm.

[Scriv 168]

I think that map is even older than 1920 -

Road classifications were introduced shortly after WW1, so this would date the map to early 1920's.

As littlebro says, it's probably a hybrid, not all features would be updated simultaneously, no satellite photography then!