The London Traveler

This tower is a child of the sixties. The Post Office commissioned it to protect ‘line of sight’ communications against interruption from the tall buildings then being planned for London; it was opened in 1965 by Prime Minister Harold Wilson – the man who famously invoked “the white heat of technology” in his speeches.

It’s a fine building, making a statement that earlier telecoms masts hadn’t. It’s an early use of a concrete shell clad in glass – for its date, quite a revolutionary technique. We’re used to ‘walls of glass’ today that we forget what a shockingly modernist building this must have seemed at the time.

Unfortunately the building was closed to the public in the 1980s and you’ll only be lucky enough to get to the top if you’re the host of British Telecom at one of its corporate events. I did manage to get up there once – but the famous revolving restaurant wasn’t actually revolving. (If you do want the revolving restaurant experience, The Fernsehturm in Berlin is pretty good.)

And we are supposed to call it the Telecom Tower, I believe. But to generations of Londoners it’s been the Post Office Tower. (What do we care if the Post Office and telecoms company went their separate ways in the 1980s?)

A lovely bit of trivia for aficionados of British culture – the Tower was opened to the public in 1966 by Tony Benn and Billy Butlin. Left wing politico and entertainment millionaire – a less likely couple you can hardly imagine!

okay, not as modern as some…

officially Telecom Tower since BT and the Post Office were demerged

revolving restaurant, now closed

Photo credit – Dominic Redvers on Flickr

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