It was good to see the Tinsley Cooling Towers in Sheffield fighting back this week-end and refusing to lie down.



Part of the second tower refuses to lie down. It was later demolished by bulldozers.

Despite the Big Art Project's committed support the passionate TowerLovers of Sheffield were unable to save their cool towers. Energy corporation EON, who own the site, have promised £0.5M to fund a public art work on the site. That's an identical amount to the estimated cost of making the towers safe.

Meanwhile, the passions around the twin towers remain anything but cool, as illustrated, by way of example, by The Sesquipedalist:

"Even though they’re the oldest standing example of hyperboloidal cooling towers in the UK and even though they were probably the largest of their kind when built in 1939, the cooling towers at Tinsley would be of considerably less interest if they were in a Lincolnshire field, or on the Northumberland coast. But they’re not. They’re a few metres from the M1, symbolising the transition from “The South” to “The North” (and back) to millions of motorists. I remember going to visit my grandparents in Sheffield in the ‘70s. Peering out of a brown Ford Cortina’s rear window, I knew we were “nearly there” when I saw at close quarters these Brobdingnangian salt and pepper pots. A matching pair no less, oozing iconicity from their concrete pours. The kind of imbued iconicity that’s been invested in by a shared memory over decades of proud “Made in Sheffield” tradition rather than blinging stainless steel meaninglessness, designed in Apathy and built in Elsewhere."
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Photo courtesy of Andy Coe