[Dachande663]

I had the luck to visit this as a child, before all the tourist side of it was shut down. I remember taking the bus past the giant turbine hall. A few facts I can remember:

1. Carol Vorderman did a lot of the engineering calculations, before she started on Countdown (probably only relevant to the UK lot).

2. They couldn't run powerlines from the facility to the grid as it's an AONB so they had to run them underground at a cost of £1M per mile for however many miles.

Great place along with Sellafield and the wind turbines in Norfolk for a kid to visit.

[squigg]

If you are ever up in Scotland, you can still visit Cruachan - the sister power station at Loch Awe with a very similar design. I took my children there two months ago. They were as amazed as I hoped they would be! Visiting hours here: https://www.visitcruachan.co.uk/

If you are a Harry Potter fan, it's not far from Loch Awe to the famous viaduct at Glenfinnan as well. Details here: https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/glenfinnan-monument/high...

[sambeau]

If you are a Star Wars fan, Cruachan is the location of The Empire’s base in Andor.

As a Scot, who’s done a lot of hillwalking in the past (and been scared witless by airforce jets suddenly appearing over the brim of a hill) it was amazing to see tie-fighters whooshing across the Scottish landscape.

[dano]

I visited Cruachan in 2019 by happenstance. It is really cool! I'm going to look for the Star Wars tie in - the architecture certainly does fit the theme. You can watch a Pathe video on Royal Opening of the dam and power station here https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/87792/

[squigg]

I did not know that - thank you, my son watched Andor - I'll get him to show me!

[LastTrain]

AONB = Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

[Neil44]

Sounds like we did a similar set of school trips, I remember standing in a big loud hall on top of the Sellafield reactor, and down inside electric mountain by the big turbines. I was most sad that they don't do tours at the moment, I wanted to take my daughter there.

[becurious]

You could also visit the Wylfa nuclear plant on Anglesey. Not sure when tours stopped (probably due to security) but you could see the reactor. All closed now.

[FFP999]

You may not have heard, but they had a little trouble there at one point, I wouldn't take a kid there.

[nicky0]

Are you referring to the Windscale fire of 1957, or something else?

I remember visiting the Sellafield visitor centre as a kid in the 1990s. It was great.

[Neil44]

What are you referring to?

[kraftman]

I did this at primary school too! We had a picnic next the bottom lake.