Electricity Supply in Shropshire before Nationalisation

Abstract

Although there have been histories written of the electricity supply industry in the past, it is only very recently that any archaeological approaches have been made to buildings and equipment in the field. To this end, Shropshire was taken as an example and all the known generating station sites visited. The study of old photographs and documents supplemented the information gained on-site and also revealed the existence of a previously un-noticed station at Clun and confirmed that of a hydro-electric station at Ludlow. A number of historic subsidiary transformer stations were also discovered and items such as early overhead line towers, feeder pillars, pavement link boxes and electric street lights examined in order to try to give a complete picture of the physical side of the electricity supply industry before Nationalisation in 1948.