BT Tower

BT TOWER

Located in the heart of Fitzrovia, there are no other very tall buildings in its proximity, allowing the narrow cylindrical shape to be easily identifiable from miles afar. Curiously, until 1992, the building didn’t officially exist, not even appearing on Ordnance Survey maps, for ludicrously inspired security reasons, despite the BT Tower being a very prominent London landmark. Even taking or possessing photographs of the tower was an offense under the `Official Secrets’ Act. In the early years of the twenty-first century, the tower was given Grade II ‘listed building’ status, meaning that besides the main structure, even the obsolete antennae may never be removed as they are now officially protected.

The tower was commissioned by the General Post Office for modernising telecommunications traffic and it was duly named the Post Office Tower. Typically modernist in style, it was constructed between 1961 and 1965 and officially opened to the public by Billy Butlin and Tony Benn in May of 1966. In the lead up to privatisation of the GPO, the building was renamed the British Telecom Tower, which by 1992 had been condensed to the BT Tower.

The height of the tower varies with the weather, it can be up to 23 centimetres shorter in winter, but it is generally considered to be 620 feet high, or 189 metres and it remained the tallest building in London until the construction of the Nat-West Tower (now called Tower 42) in 1981. Travelling at 22 km/h, it is full thirty second ride to the top in the elevators. It is the only tower in the United Kingdom that may be evacuated in emergencies by elevators, special parliamentary legislation was required for this allowance.

Towards the top, a revolving restaurant offered diners panoramic views of the capital, completing the four compass points every twenty-two minutes. Unsettling creaking sounds were suspected by some to be a deliberate ploy to encourage diners to order more wine to calm nerves. The restaurant was closed in 1980 for security reasons, some years after a terrorist bomb exploded in the men’s lavatory. Besides the communications equipment and restaurant, there was a souvenir shop and office space. Currently, there is no public access to the building.

British Telecom is the official Communications Services Partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In light of this, on the thirty-first of October 2009 a new, giant, electronic information band was unveiled at the top of the tower, amid a display of fireworks. Positioned over the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh floors, it is the highest of it kind in Europe and the Americas, being one hundred and sixty-seven metres above street level. The LED information board, with 177,000 pixels, spans the circumference of the tower and records the one thousand day countdown to the 2012 Olympics, allowing those gazing up for miles around to be reminded of the steady nearing of the London Games. A remarkable engineering feat, the display was tested in the Jules Verne climatic wind tunnel in Nantes, France, for winds of up to one hundred and ninety kilometres an hour, as well as for rain, snow and extremes of temperatures. Two thousand seven hundred trips were made up the elevators with the building materials for the display, which has an area the size of half a football pitch.

BT Tower

60 Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, London W1

Where to view video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘BT Tower’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.
Copyright: London In Motion 2009