Historic power loss has changed the landscape

Britain has said a final farewell to coal-fired power stations which for decades were dominating features on the landscape, symbols of an age of electricity generation in which coal was king.

Across our region and elsewhere they were so familiar that they did not merit a second look.

But over the years they have been swept away by the march of progress until just one was left, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, near Nottingham. That too has now ceased operation, ending the UK's 142-year reliance on the fossil fuel.

In a tribute to disappeared era, and the many people who relied on coal for their jobs, let's remember just some of the coal-fired power stations from our area which are now the stuff of memories for older folk.

Our evocative photo of Walsall power station is exactly 60 years old, dating from October 1964, and it is seen from the nearby canal, which once used to transport the coal – it also came by road and rail.

The power station at Birchills, with six chimneys and six cooling towers, was built in the late 1940s, and became operational in 1949. It burned 450,000 tons of slack coal a year. Cooling water was drawn from the canal.

The power station was closed in October 1982 and was demolished over the following years, beginning with the cooling towers.

During the 1990s the area was reclaimed. Reedswood Retail Park was built, including a Sainsbury’s, Matalan and Lidl, as well as new homes.

Our June 1975 photo shows a striking contrast between the industrial and the semi-rural as a horse finds some succulent grass in the derelict landscape in the shadow of the Ocker Hill power station at Tipton, which provided power throughout the Black Country.

Ocker Hill had a long and interesting history, its roots going back to the turn of the 20th century.

It originally had wooden cooling towers but these were replaced by three concrete ones which, together with the station’s four chimneys, were an unmissable feature of the Black Country’s skyline.

Ockers Hill's boilers and generating equipment were upgraded and changed over the years, but it was always one of the country’s most efficient stations, running at a much higher average capacity than most.

It closed in 1977, but a gas turbine generating station on the site continued in operation until 1996. In 1985 the cooling towers were knocked down, with hundreds of people turning up to watch the spectacle.

The site became a housing estate.

And lastly, let's shine the spotlight on Ironbridge power station, but not the one that has relatively recently departed the scene.

It's the original Ironbridge power station, which opened on October 13, 1932 – it was perhaps brave to open on the 13th as some locals believed that the monks of nearby Buildwas Abbey had used the site for burials and had put a curse on the ground so that nothing would ever prosper there.

The monks can’t have been that upset because this first Ironbridge power station was a success, and was dubbed the Queen Mary, with its gleaming metalwork and air of efficiency.

People who remember it may be scratching their heads at it only having three chimneys in our view. That's because our photo is from the very early days – no later than 1934. A second turbine was added later in the 1930s resulting in its final appearance with six chimneys.

This Ironbridge "A" power station was superseded by the much larger Ironbridge "B" power station which was built during the 1960s. Both have now passed into history, with the old power station being demolished in the early 1980s and its successor being demolished over the past few years.