Windscale Fire - Windscale Piles

Windscale Piles

After the Second World War, the British government, not wanting to be left behind as a world power in an emerging arms race, embarked on a programme to build its own atomic bomb as quickly as possible.

The reactors were built in a short time near the tiny village of Seascale, Cumberland, and were known as Windscale Pile 1 and Windscale Pile 2, housed in large, concrete buildings a few hundred feet apart. The reactors were graphite-moderated and air-cooled. Because nuclear fission produces large amounts of heat, it was necessary to cool the reactor cores by blowing air through channels in the graphite. Cool air was taken in by a battery of large fans, hot air was then exhausted out of the back of the core and up the chimney. Filters were added late into construction at the insistence of Sir John Cockcroft and these were housed in galleries at the very top of the discharge stacks. They were deemed unnecessary, a waste of money and time and presented something of an engineering headache, being added very late in construction in large concrete houses at the top of the 400-ft (120 m) chimneys. Due to this, they were known as "Cockcroft's Folly" by workers and engineers. As it was, "Cockcroft's Folly" probably prevented a disaster from becoming a catastrophe.