POWER HOUSE 1982/3

From items found inside the building it was clear that varied use had been made of the building since 1936.  Metal address plates, used for billing, suggested that an office had been established at one time.  A Red Cross stretcher was found and later I learned that during World War 2, wounded airmen were quartered here as a makeshift hospital.

Winter 1982/3 – front of building sliding door ajar

To the rear there is an Anderson style bomb blast shelter.  Other outbuildings have been demolished, now known to have been a piggery and a radio shack.  Near the shelter, radio parts and morse-code tapping equipment were found.  A heavy folding iron lattice gate had seized open in front of the workshop sliding timber door.

Rear of building - openings covered with corrugated iron

Another interesting chamber discovered outside the faggot store, is most probably an ice well.   It is shallow and circular, with a conical roof and good drainage. Ice wells or pits were commonly located in out of the way areas of country estates.  In England about 2,500 ice stores are recorded, in various stages of completeness.

Herstmonceux Electricity Generating Works Circa. 1900 - 1936 

Introduction  |  Instructions  |  ISBN  |  Batteries  |  Boiler Room   |  Floor Plan  |  Ron Saunders

Industrial Revolution  |   Lime Park  |  Machinery  |  Map  |  Power House  |  Argus 1999

Public Supply  |  Roof Construction  |  Rural Supply |  Sussex Express 1913  |  Conclusion

Archaeology South East   |   East Sussex CC  |  English Heritage |  SIAS  |  Sx Exp 1999

Memories of Herstmonceux by Margaret Pollard