Lookout

In spite of another patchy night, I was up and we were out just after 10am to take a train to Waterloo and then a walk into the City.  We had a 11:30am booking at The Lookout, a 50th floor viewing gallery at 8 Bishopsgate. I am not sure of the planning rules these days but it seems that every new tower going up in the city has a roof-top experience.  There’s a small security entrance to this one and a smallish lift to take people up to the 50th floor.  The lift only handles 4-6 people at a time, and only one was in service, so we had to wait for it to go up and come back again before we could board.

Exiting the list is into a largish, wood floored room with floor-to ceiling windows.  You do not get anywhere near a full 360-degree walk around the city but you do get to look out at the low rise city and not across to a bunch of other towers.  Having said that, you could look down on the top of the NatWest tower - although not really high enough to appreciate their logo in the building’s form. Immediately next door is a tower that goes even higher and has another roof-top experience. The most un-nerving part was as I was looking out the window to the next door tower (so, looking up) rather than the looking down. There are some lovely views and you can take a walk along the windows to see Tower Bridge and round to St Paul’s cathedral.   It’s still wasn’t brave enough to push my phone onto the window to take a picture.

We were inside for about 50 minutes, 35 of which were at the top, the rest security or the ascent-decent and walking around streets immediately nearby,  We plan to do the adjacent tower at some point. 

We walked back past Bankside’s Frost Fair which is run in the winter to commemorate the frost fairs that ran when the Thames froze over. This was a much more subdued affair and we timed it badly missing the entertainment and parade and only seeing a small collection of stalls.  The smell of mulled wine reminded me of Christmas but felt a bit out of place.