Really fun fact about that building. When it was built it was a “list X” facility for UK national security which meant that although it was a massive building in the middle of Fitzrovia and visible virtually anywhere in London, it didn’t appear on maps and the government would officially deny its existence.
Another fun fact - it had a rotating restaurant on the 34th floor called The Top of the Tower, which was operated by Butlins, and made one revolution every 23 minutes, but was closed in 1971 following a bombing[0]. Apparently there was talk of reopening the restaurant for the London Olympics in 2012 (not clear whether it would have rotated or not) but this didn't happen. Will be interesting to see if the hotel gets the rotating restaurant working again after all this time.
I once went to that restaurant in 2001 as a 12 year old kid who was invited to speak at a children's charity event held there.
It was a cool day out with a teacher from my school and couple of kids from a few years above. Afterwards, they took us on the London Eye as well, which was also pretty great.
Not the sort of thing that usually happens to kids in a state school in Yorkshire! I think I still have a "certificate" somewhere to say that I went to the top of the BT tower!
Nitpick, but "List X" means somewhere that holds classified material, not somewhere that doesn't appear on maps. In fact for many List X sites it would surely be a dead giveaway if there was a gap on maps where it ought to be!
According to Wikipedia and other sources [1], the BT tower was on maps (at least OS maps) anyway.
It also, IIRC has a special exemption in which unlike almost all buildings its elevators are for use in fires. In a typical building the notices tell you emphatically you should not use elevators if there's a fire, you should all use the stairs which are rated to handle the entire population of the building leaving in a timely fashion. But (if I'm thinking of the right tower) the BT Tower was specified so that the only effective way to evacuate the building during a fire is with elevators, for which purpose those elevators are rated differently.
Yeah, I remember watching a documentary on it about 10 or so years ago, and even then they said it wasn’t signposted from anywhere and it was weirdly hard to find at street level.
It's not hard to find at street level, but the base is a fairly non-descript office building, so you might walk around it before it becomes obvious. There are signs. Mostly to tell you there is no access for the public.
Not mentioned is the fact that the BT Tower was designed to be a node in the microwave backbone network. There are landmark towers across the country, though no others are also restaurants:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Telecom_microwave_netw...
"For example, the Tower’s microwave aerials were removed more than a decade ago, as they were no longer needed to carry telecommunications traffic from London to the rest of the country."
It might not go into details, but it does mention it.
I feel like my memory (and that article) aren’t very clear on this, but Backbone in spirit felt quite different to the series of high bandwidth towers of which Telecom Tower was one part.
Regular lets-call-grandma telecommunications would be handled by your well know, friendly, cuddly round towers like Telecom Tower and Stokenchurch just next to the Chiltern cutting on the M40.
Sinister everyone-has-died communications would be handled by the mysterious, dangerous looking towers like Highgate and Kelvedon Hatch. These towers resemble high tension power lines and growl at you if you look at them for too long.
This site has a lot more detail on how the two ended up as one, over the years:
Revolving restaurants! It's a fantastic place to eat, the sad thing has been that BT just couldn't exploit the value of it in terms of corporate entertainment. I think it'll be lovely for people to be able to have a meal up there.
Thats really funny, the British going to all that effort to make a fancy restaurant in the sky, and then getting dressed up in a suit and looking sharp, and then sitting down to ... a big plate of chips.
Total retail space in many countries (notably in the US, but elsewhere, too) has been ramping down for a decade or so. Frankly there's far too much of it.
Glad to see there’s still some common sense on that side of the pond. Meanwhile, in Dearborn, Michigan they decided to tear down a 670,000 Sq. Ft. office building which was previously used by Ford.
Readit News
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Tower
The Post Office Tower, as it was once called, was actually rebuilt after having been destroyed by a giant kitten in the early 1970s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ78rhjthQY
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten_Kong
It was a cool day out with a teacher from my school and couple of kids from a few years above. Afterwards, they took us on the London Eye as well, which was also pretty great.
Not the sort of thing that usually happens to kids in a state school in Yorkshire! I think I still have a "certificate" somewhere to say that I went to the top of the BT tower!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolving_restaurants
According to Wikipedia and other sources [1], the BT tower was on maps (at least OS maps) anyway.
[1] https://londonist.com/london/history/a-brief-history-of-the-...
Yep.
and for many years Soviet agents could easily find classified sites simply by looking for gaps on OS maps ( true story )
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2185107/a-very-brit...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06b36q3
( I worked in mapping for decades and have some early OS maps with defence sites left blank )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb59dEHRt5Q
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten_Kong
I think the article has been updated. Or perhaps you mean further back in time?
Deleted Comment
Reminded me of this super high resolution panorama photo from it. I think it was a quite impressive achievement at the time (2012)
It might not go into details, but it does mention it.
Regular lets-call-grandma telecommunications would be handled by your well know, friendly, cuddly round towers like Telecom Tower and Stokenchurch just next to the Chiltern cutting on the M40.
Sinister everyone-has-died communications would be handled by the mysterious, dangerous looking towers like Highgate and Kelvedon Hatch. These towers resemble high tension power lines and growl at you if you look at them for too long.
This site has a lot more detail on how the two ended up as one, over the years:
https://www.subbrit.org.uk/features/backbone-microwave-relay...
They were not big enough to contain a restaurant, just two big dishes on top of a pole, on top of a hill.
British Pathé - Top Of The Tower Aka GPO Tower (1967) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bi2_3gljm4
A breath taking view of the Horizon. Spin in the restaurant as the Postmaster general spins in his grave at what the Post Office has become.
I miss London!
Retail spaces are being turned into "experiences" with climbing walls, gyms and golf ranges taking over.
Upside is our office rent is now super cheap but I don't know who's footing the bill for all that property.
I also doubt the climbing walls are as profitable per-square-foot.
The landlord, for now, until debt matures.
Then, the banks^Wtaxpayer.
There are not many options for such a structure, which cannot be destroyed as it is listed.
Total retail space in many countries (notably in the US, but elsewhere, too) has been ramping down for a decade or so. Frankly there's far too much of it.
The reason it’s round is so that it would withstand a nuclear attack blast wave, if London was ever attacked.
I can't imagine round vs square makes more than a marginal impact on shock wave resistance...
[1] https://www.quora.com/Do-curved-surfaces-have-an-aerodynamic...
/s
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2023/11/16/former...
Just like that. American-style Capitalism is nauseatingly profligate and wasteful.