Carrington Power Station

Water Intakes and Pumphouse - Overview

Old photograph found in library archives dated "Pumphouse 1958 During Floods".
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The power station was surrounded on two sides, by waterways. The Manchester Ship Canal on one side, and the River Mersey on the other. This gave the power station an ideal and ready-made water supply, for cooling, steam, and slurrying purposes.

The station used approximatly twelve million gallons of water per hour, twenty-four hours a day, every day it was operational. The bulk of this water was taken from the Manchester Ship Canal. A small fraction (for slurrying the waste ash) was taken from the River Mersey.

The picture above shows the water intakes and pumphouse on the Manchester Ship Canal, and assuming the notation on the back of the picture is correct, the picture was taken during floods in 1958. The intakes are still extant as of January, 2008, but the pumphouse has been demolished. I was unable to find any remains of the intakes on the River Mersey.

Originally, there would have been a brick building behind the intakes, housing the machinery for raising and lowering the sluicegates, and driving the circular screen filters. Also, originally there would have been a series of concrete pillars, topped by an iron girder. I can only assume that this is where the cables to raise and lower the sluice gates would have passed over a pulley system.

The building and pillars have been removed, and the openings in the concrete floor where the circular filter screens would have been fitted have been covered over with concrete caps for safety.

The circular filter screens were mounted outside in rectangular holes in the floor, and as best as I can discover, were driven by a pulley system connected to a motor inside the building.

Water Intakes - January 2008

The remains of the water intakes at the site of Carrington Power Station.
The image is distorted, as it is a shrunk version of a 2000pixel panorama.
Click the image to see the full size.

Little Remains, other than a concrete floor, concrete curtain slopes leading down to the Manchester Ship Canal, and some old ironwork.

Care must be taken, as the concrete floor has multiple holes that a person could fall through, with possible fatal consequences, as underneath is a waterfilled chamber.