Battersea Power Station
decommissioned coal-fired power station in London, now in use as a premium shopping centre
Battersea Power Station is a preserved coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames in Nine Elms, Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It was built by the London Power Company (LPC) to the design of Leonard Pearce, Engineer in Chief to the LPC, and CS Allott & Son Engineers. The architects were J. Theo Halliday and Giles Gilbert Scott. The station is one of the world's largest brick buildings and notable for its original, Art Deco interior fittings and decor.
The building comprises two power stations, built in two stages, in a single building. Battersea A Power Station was built between 1929 and 1935 and Battersea B Power Station, to its east, between 1937 and 1941, when construction was paused owing to the worsening effects of the Second World War. The building was completed in 1955. Battersea B was built to a design nearly identical to that of Battersea A, creating the iconic four-chimney structure.
Battersea A was decommissioned in 1975. In 1980 the whole structure was given Grade II listed status; Battersea B shut three years later.
The public source identifies “Battersea Power Station” as decommissioned coal-fired power station in London, now in use as a premium shopping centre. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Battersea, Power and Station.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Battersea Power Station”, the useful work is to connect “decommissioned coal-fired power station in London, now in use as a premium shopping centre” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q810953. VIAF identifies the subject as 316746912. The Library of Congress control number is sh2005006020. Authority coordinates are 51.481, -0.144. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1935, 1937 and 1941.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Battersea Power Station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.