DEEP DOWN AND DIRTY IN NEW St ANDREW’S HOUSE
Today we examine the tripes of the beastie: pipes, ducts, plant and cabling.
Spurtle claims no special knowledge of these matters. Depending upon your point of view, what follows will be a mutual voyage of discovery or a hapless lurch in the dark.
(1) We begin our display of ignorance with a machine designed possibly for heating something up or for cooling it down. (Feel free to chip in with better suggestions at any point.)
(2) These central-heating pumps are in the P2 Plant Room.
In the (Ancillary) P1 Plant Room nearby, whatever were once connected (probably more pumps) have now disappeared.
(3) We didn’t locate the mandarin’s bathroom to which these pipes and taps belong. There are several more such elephant graveyards scattered about the building.
And, while we're in the Lift Hall, here’s what the inside of a lift display looks like.
(4) Electrical switching gear like this – in various sizes and configurations – crops up on every floor. Manufactured by the now defunct Varilectric Ltd, the sheet-metal cabinets were originally made and painted in Old Stratford, Northamptonshire, before being taken by road to Peckham. There the gubbins within were fitted and wired. Varilectric supplied switchgear for the National Theatre in London, Harland & Wolff in Belfast, the Thames Barrier, the Ordnance Survey HQ in Southampton, the Met Office in Bracknell, the Air Ministry, the Admiralty, Greater London Council and British Rail, to name but a few.
People often bang on about brown, orange and olive being the distinctive colours of the 1970s, but I recall this shade of blue being everywhere as well, from hairdryers to Fred Perry t-shirts to Austin 1100s and Ford Transits. I think it was meant to be cheerful.
(5) The black, iron tube on the left looks like a soil-pipe to us, but the copper pipes on the right are a bit of a mystery. They may contain bell-pulls for summoning servants, and are variously labelled D.C.W.S., D.H.W.R. and D.H.W.S.
These handsome enigmas stand adjacent.
(6) The complexity and scale of the building’s inner workings are often impressive.
How anyone was supposed to access the inter-floor dial in this photograph eludes us.
(7) This state-of-the-art display panel is in the Energy Efficiency Office (see yesterday’s piece). Strangely, it seems only to have concerned itself with Reception and the top floor. Perhaps these were where most heat was lost.
(8) On the roof are located a number of these industrial-scale Teasmaids.
(9) During demolition preparations, on-site power is generated within a securely mounted temporary structure to the top-right of the photograph.
(10) Something, probably civil-service hot air, exited the building via these huge flues. (In the background you can see the top of St Paul’s and St George’s, and the roof of the new hotel on York Place.)
(11) Here are some Motherwell-manufactured two-person SISCO Safety Ltd cradles, used for accessing those parts of the exterior nobody fancied reaching by ladder.
(12) And here’s how the terrestrial commander contacted the mother ship.
(13) We started with plant, and we finish with plant.
Tomorrow, we’ll conclude our tour with some odds and sods that don’t fit anywhere else and a look at the views over Edinburgh.
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@theSpurtle D.C.W.S., D.H.W.R. and D.H.W.S. = cold / hot water supply and return. D is a mystery
@Mr_Bricolage @cocteautriplets @theSpurtle S and R are probably Send and Return. Not marked with arrows to indicate flow direction?
DHWR could also be a Recirculating DHW system. Unlikely for 1950s/60s though. @Mr_Bricolage@cocteautriplets.@talloplanic @Mr_Bricolage @cocteautriplets No arrows. But just noticed there's also D.C.W.M. or maybe D.C.W.H.
@theSpurtle @talloplanic @Mr_Bricolage Main and Header? (I'm just blindly guessing now)
@theSpurtle @talloplanic @Mr_Bricolage @cocteautriplets https://www.rit.edu/fa/facilities/sites/rit.edu.fa.facilities/files/docs/RIT%20Pipe%20Labeling%20Painting%20and%20Valve%20Tag%20Standard%2003%2001%202013.pdf …
Paul Foley Great pics. As an electrician I found the switch gear particularly interesting. Thanks!
1985 photoset of St James Centre HMV store, note intriguing arrow to "Public Houses" https://www.flickr.com/photos/hmvgetcloser/5136081245/in/album-72157625289594832/ … cc @theSpurtle
.@cocteautriplets Suspect one of these was the St James Cafe, Bar and Night Club, tucked away behind the hotel.
andy arthur @cocteautriplets
@theSpurtle a parasol! oh so exotic! I sense a mid-1908s Magaluf theme?
@cocteautriplets @theSpurtle Went to a lot of political discos there in 84/85. Free Mandela,Women's Aid etc Very earnest dancing. #pintsonly
@lattegirl10 @theSpurtle that's awesome. And were there parasols, or was that blatant false advertising?
@cocteautriplets @theSpurtle Afraid no parasols! Constant loop of 99 Red Balloons and this
@lattegirl10 @cocteautriplets @theSpurtle @YouTube had my 21st in there!
@lattegirl10 @cocteautriplets @theSpurtle @YouTube 21st birthday party in case that wasn't clear.
