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Dundee Road, SLOUGH, SL1 4LG

Slough has been the home of Mars bars since 1932 when Forrest Mars and 12 staff opened their first factory. Now a global product, it all started here in Slough. Did you know there was a Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest Mars Bar? Or that the label on the Mars Chill Bar turns from white to blue if it's cooled? Did you even know Forrest Mars was a person? (actually, that seems the most surprising) All this and more fascinating Martian facts on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_%28chocolate_bar%29 Forrest Mars died in 1999, leaving a fortune of around $4billion. His three children inherited the company.

A main road and railway bridge through Slough Trading Estate. The estate is owned by SERCO and is the largest privately owned industrial estate in Europe. It is home to over 500 companies with a workforce of around 20,000 people.

At the junction with Buckingham Avenue. The nearer mail box looks like a special one for parcels.

On the south side of Edinburgh Avenue.

This was until recently the private power station for Slough Trading Estate. This has been supplying heat and power to the estate since 1920. Originally coal fired, it has now gone over to predominantly biomass (wood) firing. There is also some natural gas and heavy fuel oil in the mix. The modern building on the right houses a wood briquetting plant. The tall building in front of the chimney houses one of the modern wood fired plants including a Peter Brotherhood steam turbine with roof mounted air-cooled condenser. The tall building beyond the chimney houses two fluidised bed boilers that originally burnt coal but now burn wood. Older buildings house further older boilers (gas fired) and the four remaining steam turbines (one Siemens, one Brotherhood and two by C A Parsons). There is also a John Brown gas turbine of 23 MW. The two cooling towers are also part of the plant, although there is also pass-out steam at 14 bar to other users on the estate. It was recently acquired by Scottish & Southern, presumably to improve their CO2 emissions as it is biomass fired.

The nearer chimney is refractory lined as it receives hot gas turbine exhaust. The turbine can be operated open cycle or combined cycle. The tall light building houses the "fibre-fuel" (www.fibrefuel.co.uk ) fired installation and the large pipe up the end is the exhaust from a big Peter Brotherhood turbine that is on its way to an air cooled roof mounted condenser. This is a fascinating plant with many unique features and is well worth a visit if you are in to that sort of thing. Interior photos are not for Geograph but are available on request.

The tall building on the right is the boiler house holding two fluidised bed water tube boilers that are about 36m tall and run at 87 bar. The view from the top is spectacular. This power station has developed over nearly 90 years and is crammed in to a very small space compared to its former CEGB brethren.