These are great times for going up very tall buildings. Last month 8 Bishopsgate opened its rooftop viewing platform to the public, free of charge, and on Wednesday 22 Bishopsgate followed suit. Its viewing platform is called Horizon 22, and at 254m above ground level it's two double decker buses loftier than the upper platform at the Shard. Why pay £32 south of the river when you can stand even higher above the City for nothing?
Tickets are being made available in monthly bursts and were first launched two weeks ago. It only took two minutes for opening day to sell out, and within five minutes all the weekend slots had been snapped up too. I plumped for a visit on Day Two, i.e. yesterday, and kept my fingers crossed that the weather would play ball. It sort of did.
The entrances to 8 Bishopsgate and 22 Bishopsgate are immediately adjacent, because City towers have much larger footprints than the addresses they ultimately replaced. Horizon 22 has the flashier way in, indeed everythingabout it is a bit snazzier than The Lookout nextdoor, perhaps because it'll also serve customers to a rooftop restaurant. There are far more staff, they're far more cheerful and they also have a few more passageways to direct you along to reach the lift, which is far larger and whooshes upwards much quicker. Indeed it only takes 42 seconds to whisk you from the first floor to the 58th floor mezzanine, and the ascent is almost imperceptible apart from your ears going pop partway up.
Not only is this the pinnacle of the City's skyscraper cluster it's also a surprisingly large space split over two levels. The initial landing is set back slightly from the main windows, which might seem disappointing, but all the main action is on the floor below in a giant glass-walled gallery. It does feel slightly ridiculous to have ascended all this way and then to have to walk down the loftiest staircase in London, 34 steps in total, but the needs of restaurant-goers have been prioritised (and yes there is a separate lift).
It's very wow. An extraordinary panorama is laid out beneath you, including the tops of buildings you might previously have thought were tall. Shakespeare Tower at the Barbican - peanuts. The Skygarden at the Walkie Talkie - plainly second best. One of the closest is Tower 42, for many years the City's highest building but only from up here is its bank-logo cross-section self-evident. I had a bit of a moment when I realised what I was looking at was the top of the Cheesegrater, the narrow tip of the wedge, at an almost-jumpable distance just beneath me.
The tower's location means that what you'll see most clearly is the western half of the City of London, which is generally quite lowrise, or feels like it from up here. Enjoy the geometrical burst of roads that radiates out from Bank Junction, plus a perfectly unobscured view of St Paul's Cathedral, plus all the little boats sailing on the grey ribbon of the Thames (whose meandering path is somehow visible all the way from Westminster to Barking). It's so high that people on the ground don't really register, nor the vehicles, while the trains threading through London Bridge station form what looks like a charming micro model railway.
You don't get a 360° view, only 300°, with the east of London almost entirely obscured. You can just about see Whitechapel out of one window and the Lea Valley out of another but not the sector inbetween (which annoyingly is where I live). But everything else is up for grabs, dependent on the weather and the angle of the sun. I went up on an overcast day with low grey cloud so the promised horizon was more of a dissolved blur, but it was still perfectly possible to see Hampstead Heath, the tower at North Acton and the upthrust of Croydon. I also played a quick game of 'Spot the football stadium' (Arsenal yes, Tottenham yes, Wembley yes, West Ham no), indeed if you don't spend most of your visit standing by the window trying to identify stuff you're probably doing this wrong.
Your chief enemy is glare, so I reckon I got a better view of grey South London than when I went up neighbouring 8 Bishopsgate in bright sunshine. Your panoramic photos are also likely to be thwarted by reflections, particularly of the people walking behind you or standing at the next window along, although visitors repeatedly taking selfies are unlikely to be bothered by this. My top tip is that there's a separate small mezzanine up the steps on the way out which is often people-free, plus it's also several metres higher than the main gallery. It's also the best place to look down on the paying punters in the Shard - they won't see you but you can feel smug about it all the same.
The attendant told me they're only releasing 60 tickets for each half-hour session, increasing later to 80 once things have bedded in, so it should never get too busy to have a really good view without jostling. Also if you want to hang around you can, nobody's going to chuck you out until closing time (which is 6pm weekdays, 5pm Saturday and 4pm Sunday). Refreshments are available, although nothing more than a counter with a bogstandard frothy coffee machine and a very small selection of snacks (KitKats and popcorn yes, cakes pastries no). There are also toilets, and if you use the ones upstairs you can shut yourself away and enjoy the highest wee in London.
At time of writing Horizon 22's second tranche of tickets is now up for grabs, with availability on most of the weekdays in November. It's entirely free and all you have to do is wave the QR code in the confirmation email to gain access. By contrast the 50th floor Lookout nextdoor is fully booked until January and it isn't even as good an experience. If you're interested in seeing London from above then I urge you to apply now, and if you don't manage to pick a time that's rain-free, fog-free and glare-free then you can always go up again later.
