Well what can I say about this site. It is easily one of the most well known london lankmarks love it or hate it, its there and for the time being its not going anywhere. As you know the structure is huge and when it was being worked on the kind builders added scaffold up to the chimneys allowing access to some of the most amazing london views around.

I visited a total of 10 times with different people. One of the most interesting times was going with Batman and bumping into Oxygen Theif and Stumpy at the top of the tower. What are the chances of that!. The following is the visit with. The Riddlers, Intrepid Explorer, Little Elvis, Disco Kitten, Nivelo and myself. And is currently my most recent and eventful trip.

Access to the site had changed each time but due to the art show which was about to take place cameras had been set up around the site which proved a problem. Once in we headed straight up to the first control room. Luckily the door had been left unlocked so we got in no problems. A long line of machines stood alone in a huge art deco room, each with its own descriptions of the power sectors that it was responsible for. We took plenty of photos before heading up to the roof.

The views from here were just as good we stood staring at the four monster white chimneys. We regrouped then began the scaffold climb. The higher we climbed the better the viewer became until 20 minutes later we had 6 of us at the peak of the tower!. Even after all the trips ive done here I was still in awe. We took photos of everything at the top and the surrounding areas then headed down to the roof.

As we planned to go over to control room b which was on the opposite side we had a look at the large cavernous space we had to cross when we saw a security guard sitting against the wall. We looked and he didnt move for a while so we wondered if we had been seen. We zoomed in to take a picture to discover it was a figure of a person dressed in high viz . Haha clever security had us going for ages. We then saw a real guard going into the hut at the bottom of the art exhibition so we scrapped the plans and sat down on the roof and took in the views and talked for a while before we headed off and out.

Trip 11 - One Year On

Well you pretty much all know what this site is, what it was and what a sheer hulking relic on the London skyline it is so I wont need to go into that. After seeing Downfallen's recent trip I had a look back at the ones from last year and noticed the last time I visited was the same day last year. So after a call to loops we decided to give a crack at it.

After a painful train ride and nearly losing my ticket I met loops at Victoria. We set of walking towards the river. We had defiantly chosen the right night, the sky was clear of all clouds and the usual horrid orange tint was now a dark blue.

Before long we sat on a nearby bridge sizing up our access and options, then we went for it. We had help from df so we knew roughly where we were going which made life easier. But still it was a lot harder then last time. New cameras had been erected around the site, the amount of floodlights had increased and not to mention the one barren car park was now a new base camp for the developers teaming with huts, trucks and equipment.

We finally made it into the site grounds and just had one final dash to the building. We had to wait for the rails workers to move on as the machine they were using was fitted with the brightest lights known to man.

3, 2, 1 run!. We ran as fast as we could and slipped under the final fence and into the relic. Since this was now my 11th trip to Battersea I was originally planning to make it my last but the idea was instantly destroyed once we stood in the cavernous interior. I had forgotten just how jaw dropping it was.

We started with the eastern block which housed control room B, we made our way across the grounds and over to where I remember the "waving men" used to be. Hmm it wasn't there anymore, oh well we kept on around the corner.

Ahh!. I jumped out of my skin as I came across the waving man in the middle of a doorway. There were three in total and one looked like a cowboy. We headed up the stairs and eventually out onto the first roof. We took a few photos and headed over to the first tower and made our way up. I was hoping we could somehow make our way around to the high tower but sadly this wasn't the case. We spent a while up here taking photos and sizing up the Dock cranes before we headed back down to the blueprints room.

I still cant believe this place there was more then I realized and proper ones as well not the fake copies that are usual found in hospitals. The drawings showed various parts of the power station including a diagram of control room A.

I wanted to see if we could access the high tower but after almost 40 minutes of looking around we gave up it cant be done anymore sadly without the key to the only door left. Which looks like it could withstand a bomb.

Oh well back over to the other side to see if "B" was open. We accidentally came out on the wrong level but loops spied a bit of machinery I hadn't seen before. Two large components for "Reactor 5". Back down we came to the doorway. It was still locked but someone had tried to use some sereous force to get in the padlock was bent out of shape but still locked. We peered through the gap in the door to see what might have been and pushed the door shut again. "PING".

The lock had come off the door side of the bolt. With that unbelievable stroke of luck we went in and started taking pictures. We had to be quick as we knew wed be blamed for breaking the lock. We took several pics and each switch the massive breaker lever on. Before we headed out not before signing the guest book.

A excellent trip and I might, just might go again! :)