Going, going, gone! Demolition job caught on camera by Bugle reader
Take it ice and easy as the weather hots up. MARION MCMULLEN looks at the stars who have got it licked
BUGLE reader and regular contributor to these pages, Richard Pursehouse was on hand last weekend to capture with his camera the last moments of a well known Midlands landmark.
The cooling towers of the former Rugeley Power Station have dominated the skyline and views across Cannock Chase for many decades but on Sunday, June 6, the four behemoths came tumbling down in a series of controlled explosions.
There have been two coal-fired power stations on the site. Rugeley A began construction in 1956 and opened in 1961 and was joined by Rugeley B in 1970. The A site closed in 1994 and was demolished two years later. Rugeley B closed in 2016 and demolition began in 2019.
Coal
When the power station first began operations, it took coal directly from the neighbouring Lea Hall Colliery, via a conveyor belt, and was the first such arrangement in Britain.
After the colliery closed in 1991, the power station had its coal delivered by rail.
The demolition of the four cooling towers was scheduled for 11am on June 6, but it was realised that this would coincide with the minute’s silence at the D-day commemorations at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, so blast off was delayed for 25 minutes.
Local schoolgirl Lily Patterson, aged 11, from Redbooke Hayes Primary School, won a competition to press the demolition button.
Watch
Hundreds of residents gathered on a nearby hillside to watch the demolition, despite police urging families to stay at home and watch it online, in line with the Government’s coronavirus guidance.
The other buildings and structures on the site are expected to be demolished by the end this year. The French energy firm which owned and operated the power station, Engie, is planning to redevelop the site for housing. Outline planning permission was granted in April this year for 2,300 new low-carbon homes and a school and the wider development will include more than 12 acres of business space, a new neighbourhood centre and a country park near the River Trent.
DID you study at Bilston Community College in the early 1980s?
If so, have a good squint at this photograph and see if you recognise anyone.
Names
The picture has been forwarded to us by Wolverhampton photographer Roy Hawthorne, who took it, he believes, in or around 1983.
It appears to have been taken in the canteen, but the figures in the foreground seem to have been photography students.
If you can give us any names, or would like to tell us your memories of time at Bilston College, we’d love to hear from you. Email gjones@blackcountrybugle.co.uk, give us a call on 01384 889000, or write to us at Black Country Bugle, Dudley Archive Centre, Tipton Road, Dudley, DY1 4SQ.
HERE’S something unusual that we haven’t come across before at the Bugle. It is a dust jacket for a book from Brierley Hill Library. It is unusual in that the enterprising librarians sold advertising space on it, to bring in some extra income.
It has been loaned to us by David Cookson of Amblecote and the dust jacket originally belonged to his father, Norman Cookson, who had a long career in local government, first with Stourbridge Council, then with Brierley Hill, which was later absorbed in to Dudley. However, Norman did not work in the library services of any the councils – he was in the sanitary department – but he did have a habit of rescuing things that were being thrown away that he thought were interesting and worth saving. He built up quite a collection of historical documents and artefacts relating to the districts he served, which has now passed on to David.
We have no date for this dust jacket and it may well date from before Norman Cookson’s time with Brierley Hill Council.
In all, 12 firms are advertised on the dust jacket, all of them in Brierley Hill, except one – The Wool Shop in Darlington Street, Wolverhampton.
On the book’s spine would be the Brierley Hill Mineral Water Company, founded in 1933 in Parkes Street by S. Elwell – hence their brand name Selwell. The company was later acquired by Ansells.
Society
The Brierley Hill and Stourbridge Incorporated Building Society is advertised on the back cover. As the advert states, the society was founded in 1849 and it survived until 1979, when it was taken over by the Leamington Spa Building Society, which was later merged into the Bradford and Bingley.
Brierley Hill Library and Technical Institute in Moor Street was built with a £2,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation and opened in 1904. The library moved to its current home on the High Street in 1970.
Can you tell us any more about the Brierley Hill businesses that advertised on the library’s books?