Photographer Greg Moss began his long-term project documenting Fawley Power Station in 2013, shortly after the oil-fired facility ceased generating electricity.

He has followed the brutalist structure through the protracted process of decommissioning and demolition, culminating in the dynamiting of its gigantic 198m-tall chimney stack in late 2021.

As well as a valuable record of one of the most iconic examples of post-war power station architecture, the Razing Power series of photographs also resonates with the current debate about energy independence and net zero, not to mention the redevelopment of other power stations such as Battersea. The impact of constructing such a bold and brutal structure in a sensitive landscape such as the New Forest is counterpointed by a growing movement against demolition, calling for greater retention and reuse of buildings.

Designed by specialist industrial architect Farmer and Dark, Fawley Power Station was completed in 1971. The site dominated the coastline at the entrance to Southampton Water, as well as the low- lying New Forest, its chimney a landmark for miles around.

‘When I began photographing Fawley, it was purely an exploration,’ recalls Moss. ‘But after a single visit I became fascinated by its vast interior, filled with miles of pipeline, cranes, glass cladding and turbines.’ Knowing the site was planned to be demolished, he decided to start documenting its colossal form, ageing mechanics and patina from decades of constant operation. ‘At times it felt rather eerie, wandering around the station and not seeing a soul nor hearing anyone.’

As much as the design and engineering appealed to Moss, it was the process of destruction that was just as fascinating. ‘With the station being slowly dissected and at times toppled with explosives, it turned from a cathedral of steel and glass into a dusty mass of detritus.' He also documented the famous retro-futuristic control room: ‘It felt more like the set of a 1960s’ sci-fi film than a working power station in Hampshire’.

Despite campaigning by the 20th Century Society, the structure failed to be listed. Demolition is now almost complete, prior to redevelopment as Fawley Waterside mixed-use scheme with 1,500 new homes.

I first encountered Fawley Power Station, as I suspect most people in Southampton do, as a silhouette in the far distance.

On my way to work at the Royal South Hants hospital there was a street which perfectly aligned with the flares of Fawley Oil Refinery and the inelegant mass of Fawley’s chimney. Curiosity got the better of me and a pilgrimage to the temple of power was in order. A week later, disembarking from an early morning bus and crunching along the gravel path between the salt marsh and the refinery’s outer perimeter, I got my first glimpse of the reality of Fawley Power Station.

Unlike Battersea or Bankside, Fawley was not hidden amongst an urban morass but laid out on the shore of Southampton Water in full profile. Stand in just the right spot and it felt as though you were looking at technical drawings and not (as ended up being the case) one of Britain’s most polluting power stations. The turbine hall was crowned with a crystalline glazed upper level which gave off an orange-white iridescence at dusk when the sodium lights inside illuminated the hulking piles of equipment needed to generate power for the Solent region.

It pains me to use ‘was’ when referring to Fawley. I moved away from Southampton when talk of its demolition was vague and distant, and I have yet to see the cleared plateau of land from which a poorly-sited housing estate will eventually rise up in its place. Fawley was a monument to the white heat of technology but a desperately flawed one. Construction began just two years after Wilson’s speech and the space-age ‘flying saucer’ control room with its polished concrete and gently domed roof was a vision of a different future from that which Fawley was destined. The plant became operational just a few short years before the oil crisis of the 1970s and never fulfilled its promise as a vital part of the UK’s power grid. The chimney became an accidental icon, thankfully more often idle than spewing out black smoke - less self-conscious than Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower or the never-built Spitfire Memorial in Southampton, but no less engrained in the local consciousness.

It’s gone now, of course. An impressive demolition, which I cannot bring myself to watch, was its last hurrah and the elegant modernism of Wilson and Benn will give way to a neo-classical new town in the vein of Truss and Charles. First as tragedy, then as farce.

Adam Smith
Adam is a teacher and writer based in Southend-on-Sea in Essex. He has been on many pilgrimages to power stations around the country and has written previously about Fawley for the 20th Century Society.