Photographer captures final days of Fawley Power Station as efforts to preserve facility fail
A new exhibition at a south-east London gallery records the final days of Fawley Power Station in Hampshire, which the Twentieth Century Society tried to get listed in recognition of its architectural merit.
The building, constructed between 1965 and 1971 to designs by Farmer and Dark, was an oil-fired power station boasting a 198m chimney that towered over the New Forest and the waters of the Solent.
The C20 society argued the building could have a future similar to Giles Gilbert Scott’s Bankside Power Station, converted into the Tate Modern gallery by Herzog & de Meuron in the late 1990s.
However the site has now been largely cleared for redevelopment with a residential-led scheme featuring around 1,500 homes. The only remaining elements are a concrete-lined dock and the basement of the turbine hall. The chimney was felled in a controlled explosion in November 2021.
Until its demolition, the power station was a constant presence in the life of photographer Greg Moss.
His Razing Power exhibition at the Gareth Gardner Gallery in Deptford runs from 19 November to 4 December. It is accompanied by an essay written by Adam Smith.
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