Album Nottinghamshire from tarboat

Gravel loader

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 16:59:37 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Attenborough sand and gravel pit was established in Nottinghamshire in the 1920s. Since then the pit has expanded up the Trent Valley in Nottinghamshire, and into Derbyshire. The extraction at the time (2009), operated by CEMEX UK Materials (Aggregates) Ltd, was undertaken almost 5km from the processing plant and material is moved across the flooded former workings with barges pushed by Bantam tugs.

The flooded pits form an extensive nature reserve which is managed by Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and Broxtowe Borough Council. Here an empty barge is arriving under the loader with the chimney and cooling towers of Ratcliffe power station in the background. This interesting water traffic seems to have ended in 2016 after exhaustion of the gravel reserves.

Unit 2

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 06:42:05 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Parsons built Generating unit No.2 at Ratcliffe power station. This had a rated output of 500 MW.

Generation Hall

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 05:23:28 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Looking across the generating hall at Ratcliffe power station back when it was still at work. This was the cleanest, tidiest, power station I have ever been in.

Coal power

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 13:16:48 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Cottam power station on load on a cold January day.

Two giants

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 07:05:48 +0000

tarboat has posted:

West Burton power station was on part load whilst beyond the Cottam power station was hard at work on this bright cold winter day in January 2019. All now closed and under demolition.

Upcast shaft

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:11:59 +0000

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Top of the upcast shaft at Clipstone Colliery. When the pit closed in 2003 the shafts were 1006 yards deep.

Annesley

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 06:42:58 +0000

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Sinking Annesley Colliery commenced in January 1865 with two 13ft diameter shafts reaching the Top Hard seam at a depth of 420 yards in 1867. During the First World War the shafts were deepened to the Deep Soft/Deep Hard seams at 580 yards. It became part of the Annesley-Bentinck complex in April 1988 and the early 1990s saw record output from the Blackshale seam. Despite being highly profitable it was put on care and maintenance in 1994 and was restarted having passed to Coal Investments in 1995. That company went into liquidation in 1996 and from then until closure it was operated by Midlands Mining Limited. Demolition was well underway when I photographed the No.2 headstocks over the upcast shaft in 2008.

Around the back

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 07:05:15 +0000

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At the back of the upcast shaft and coal screening plant at Thoresby Colliery just one week before closure.

Parking

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 07:05:58 +0000

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This multi-storey car park on Burnham Way, Nottingham had seen better days in 2008. The brutalist structure has since been replaced by an office block.

West Burton

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sun, 24 Nov 2024 07:44:56 +0000

tarboat has posted:

The 2,000MW coal-fired power station at West Burton on the River Trent was commissioned in 1968. It was still working when I visited in 2019 but now demolition is well underway.

Ratcliffe on Soar Power Station

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 05:45:40 +0000

tarboat has posted:

With the closure of the UKs last coal burning power station this is a look back to when it was still hard at work.

Cooling

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 16:54:55 +0000

tarboat has posted:

I went for a last look at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station before it closes at the end of the month and was largely confounded by the weather. Over two days it was so murky and foggy that it proved almost impossible to see the power station unless very close. I ended up with a few shots of the cooling towers taken from the roadway outside the East Midlands Parkway railway station.

Drilling

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 06:01:38 +0000

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A drilling rig is prepared for action at a disused wellhead in the Nottinghamshire oilfield at Weston. This site is known as Egmanton 3 and was presumably expected to yield more product at some point.

West Burton

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 16:19:28 +0000

tarboat has posted:

The coal fired station at West Burton generated 2,000 MW and was the first station of this capacity in Britain.

Cottam power station

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:43:40 +0000

tarboat has posted:

At the time only months from closure, the 2,000 Mw EDF owned coal-fired station at Cottam was hard at work when I last visited. Opened in 1969 it is now gutted and slowly being demolished.

West Burton power

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 07:41:30 +0000

tarboat has posted:

At West Burton there were two power stations on the River Trent near Gainsborough. One is a coal-fired power station, which was commissioned in 1968, and the second is a combined cycle gas turbine power station, commissioned in 2011. Both stations were owned and operated by EDF Energy. This is the coal fired station which generated 2,000 MW and was the first station of this capacity in Britain. It was closed during 2023.

Valves and pipes

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 07:21:49 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Somewhere in the boiler house of Britain's last remaining operational coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe on Soar. I have no idea what they are all for.

Harworth Colliery

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 07:32:05 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Harworth Colliery closed in 2006 and was kept on care and maintenance for a few years by owners UK Coal. The two shafts which were sunk in the 1920s were 900 and 1000m deep. There are estimated to be around 40 million tonnes of reserves in the Deep Soft and Top Hard seams but all is now demolished and these reserves will never be accessed.

West Burton Power

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sun, 14 Jan 2024 06:30:21 +0000

tarboat has posted:

West Burton power station hard at work in 2009. Cottam power station cooling towers are just visible lower left.

Ratcliffe

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 15:59:41 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Generating hall with boiler building to right at the Ratcliffe power station.