The Transformer block of Xivry Circourt - Poste de Transformation de Xivry Circourt Built 1937-1938

External View of undefended Tranformer Block	Disused pylons coming accross the fields	Front corridor - 65kV entered through the cages in the top of the corridor	Transformer room here 65Kv was transfomed to 17.5Kv Each "stall" had a transformer in it	Standby Battery Room with Lead Acid batteries

The purpose of these blocks was to supply electricity to a number of forts in the area, the high voltage electricity entering the blocks from overhead pylons at 65000 Volts and then being transformed to a lower voltage,17500 Volts, and supplied to the local forts by underground cables. The forts were 8 – 10 km away. This transformer station supplied electricity to the forts of Fermont. Latiremont and Brehain.

The undefended single story blockhouse is on farmland and it's now used, in part, to store hay. The block is approximately 150 feet in length with a large door at both ends and two large slots in the wall, each with a canopy above them. The overhead power cables would have entered the building at these points and a line of disused electricity pylons can be seen running across the nearby fields towards the block. Inside there is a wide front corridor with rails and a turntable pit at either end. There’s a large cage on the wall opposite the slots with insulators for securing the power cables.

One half of the block is a mirror image of the other; it’s divided into various rooms some with transformer mountings and others divided into bays. At the back of the latter rooms ladders go down to short tunnels running the width of the building; at the end of each tunnel there’s an exit point for underground power cables. At the back of the block there’s a battery room with a rack of lead acid batteries still in place.

A number of unused porcelain insulators are stacked in one room, one of them five feet long in a six foot wooden crate.