When it opened anyone could pay four shillings to take a lift to the top of the Post Office Tower, and in that first year over a million people took up the offer. But the viewing platforms closed in 1971 following a terrorist explosion and the famous revolving restaurant closed in 1980, making access to the top very difficult unless you were a BT employee, telethon phone-answerer or Noel Edmonds. Hurrah then that Open House managed to wangle some tickets, this for the second year running, and once again ran a ballot knowing these would be vastly oversubscribed. All you had to do was be extremely lucky, or be the plus-one of someone who'd got lucky themselves, and a lifelong ambition could be realised.
The Post Office Tower, a potent symbol of the white heat of technology, rose inexorably above the streets of Fitzrovia in the early Sixties. It needed to be over 150m tall so the microwave aerials attached to the top had a clear view of further towers on the horizon, and it needed to be in central London so the benefits of the new communications tower weren't negated by having to lay cables to the outskirts. It was opened on 8th October 1965 by Prime Minister Harold Wilson who rang up the Mayor of Birmingham to celebrate and then descended to the observation deck where, as Tony Benn's diary recalls, ‘it was so misty we could hardly see anything at all’. Thankfully the view this weekend was rather better. [12 photos]
The public entrance to the tower is generally shuttered and staff enter via a more austere lobby round the corner. So it was a bit of thrill to go up the special steps and present my credentials at the desk, security having been ramped up somewhat since that gents toilet exploded. The permanent artworks here are phonebox-based, but there are also display cases showcasing early ephemera like a first day cover with POT stamps, an original paper bag from the gift shop and the Queen's signature on the first page of the Visitors Book. They sell a few modern day souvenirs too, for example pin badges and tiny boxed gold tower models, although on closer inspection most of these appeared to be for the 50th anniversary which they're still trying to unload.
The most mobbed artefact was a menu from the Butlin's Top Of The Tower restaurant, presented mostly in French, in which Les Scampis cost £1.70, a side order of Les Courgettes Provençale 40p and 'Two large fillets of Sole, one coated with a Lobster Sauce and the other with a Champagne Sauce with a Bouchée of Lobster and a Barquette of Caviar' just £2.35. If you wanted the plebbier roast beef dinner (£1.75) you had to come for Saturday or Sunday lunch. And all this was just a lift ride away, perhaps alighting at floor 35 for the cocktail lounge before walking down to 34 for the à la carte. Originally each lift travelled at 1000 feet a minute but these days, according to the still-Imperial display screen, it's a steady 600 all the way.
You step straight out onto the deck. It's not a big space, despite being the widest part of the tower, at barely 20 metres in diameter. It's also somewhat nondescript now the restaurant's gone, all white walls and grey carpet, making the view across central London all the more impressive. We've got quite blase about visiting observation decks atop City skyscrapers of late, but this would have been utterly astonishing when it was the tallest building in London, a title it held until the Nat West Tower overtook in 1980. And it still offers a unique perspective on London, what with Westminster and Camden councils being much less cavalier about approving tall buildings, hence almost nothing gets in the way of the surrounding rooftops.
In excellent news the outer ring still rotates. It does this every 22 minutes so if you take a seat the whole of central London sweeps past you almost three times an hour. What's a little unnerving is that the colour plates identifying the landmarks beneath don't move, they merely inch past because they're attached to the outer wall. Look northwest for Wembley Stadium, northeast for Alexandra Palace, southeast for Tower Bridge and southwest for a surprisingly large Broadcasting House. What you get to see at its best depends very much on the angle of the sun and cloudcover, but I was particularly impressed by the lush extent of Regent's Park and merely squinted at the Crystal Palace and Croydon transmitters on the southern horizon.
Up here you can see that some of the finest stucco mansions don't look quite so snazzy from the back, and that the London Eye and Hyde Park are a lot further away than you might think. I had hoped to get a decent view of the broad demolished swathe that should one day be HS2, but annoyingly the angle wasn't quite right and the Euston Tower blocked a lot of it. One thing that really stood out was the relatively regimented grid formed by the adjacent streets, this because Fitzrovia and Marylebone feature a lot of densely packed Georgian rectangles. By contrast when you go up a tall building in the City you're surrounded by a mostly medieval street pattern, organically grown, with buildings scattered according to no obvious pattern.
You could have spent all your time up here staring through the windows but the space itself had a few additional intriguing features. A TV screen was showing a Pathé news report on the revolving restaurant, all Sixties glamour, beige meals and flash carpeting. You can watch that here if you want to get the flavour. The refreshment table topped with PG Tips, an urn and milk stirrers was likely temporary. I also wanted to interact properly with the revolving ring so stood with my feet either side of the dividing line and waited. After ten seconds one foot was noticeably further ahead than the other, after 20 I was becoming unstable and after 30 I was at risk of doing the splits so withdrew. A waiter could have stepped across easily without missing a beat.
Within the central core one door led to a staff-only galley, although I doubt this was used for cooking meals because the original kitchens were two floors up on 36. I was more interested in the door labelled Bathroom's, not for the criminal grammar but because these were signposted as being on floor 35 which meant the opportunity to climb a few metres higher. This turned out to be via a narrow spiralling staircase, again white-walled, past a somewhat unnerving fire alarm. I tried to imagine glamorous hepcats descending with Babychams in hand on their way to enjoy Duck à l'Orange or Chicken Supreme, but the illusion was dashed somewhat by the discovery of a row of cubicles and a bored-looking security guard in a garret alongside. The view from the Shard's toilets is better.
My Dad had the good fortune to go to the top of the Post Office Tower while it was being built, such was his job, and remembers that the lift didn't go all the way at the time. 60 years later I have finally followed in his footsteps, taking the more comfortable route, and have finally ticked off a long-standing item on my bucket list. One day you too may follow, especially now the building's been purchased by a hotel company, although that complex transformation remains many years off we were told. In the meantime thank you Open House for the joy of a once in a lifetime opportunity, atop a building the same age as I am.
