Woking Electrical Control Room (2016)

The Woking electrical control room, built in 1936 to designs by James Robb Scott and erected by Swedish firm Asean, served as one of five Southern Rail control hubs. Externally an unadorned concrete block, inside it reveals a large oval space with a white domed ceiling, a small central switchboard desk and four decorative cast-iron columns topped by large copper dishes that held rugby-ball-shaped bulbs. Black control panels line the walls, each panel corresponding to a specific substation and enabling rapid reconfiguration of electricity flow to avoid service interruptions; mercury arc rectifiers were deployed along the line to manage current conversion.

Operationally the room required only two on-site engineers who coordinated repairs and wound the switchboard telephone during operations. It remained in use until 1997, when a newer substation assumed its functions; only one other of the original five survives, and that has been stripped for storage. The offices remain occupied and the building is Grade II listed. The space opens briefly for the Open London heritage weekend, an opportunity the photographer used to document this well-preserved example of interwar railway electrification, combining architectural detail, technical systems and conservation context.