Tinsley Towers

Thursday, 28th August 2008 by

Tinsley Viaduct is a two-tier road bridge in Sheffield, England; the first of its kind in the UK. It carries the M1 motorway over a 1033 metre section of the Don Valley, and is one of Sheffield's most prominent landmarks. Sadly there's not much to see from our viewpoint.

Fortunately for us however, the Tinsley Viaduct runs right past the Tinsley Towers, a fantastic pair of defunct cooling towers. Due to their extremely close proximity to the viaduct, they were left standing when the power plant they served was demolished in the 70s.

As it happens, "extremely close" is a bit of an understatement - the nearest tower stands only 12 metres from the M1!

Actually, "stood" is the correct term I'm afraid.

Following years of strengthening work to the viaduct (and presumably advances in demolition technology), the towers were finally brought down1 in the early hours of Sunday the 24th August. You can watch a video of the spectacular destruction of the towers over at the BBC.

Thanks to Radio 2 and the ever informative Jonathan Rawle.


  1. Despite several campaigns to save them, including a rather fanciful attempt to reposition them as some kind of "art installation". ↩︎