Tower Bridge Experience Review

Reviewed by Katie Allen

Being a self-confessed bridge addict I jumped at the chance to go to the Tower Bridge Experience. I had been before but almost 18 years ago so it was very definitely time to go again.

Even though we chose to go on the last Saturday of the school Easter holidays we were pleasantly surprised to see it wasn’t too busy and we were ushered into the ticket office in the North West Tower to pick up our tickets. There was a small queue for the lift to take you up the 202 foot structure so we were given the choice to take the steps, 311 of them in total, which we took to the high-level walkways.

The stairway took us inside one of the Victorian piers (each one containing over 70,000 tons of concrete) and you can even touch the rivets holding it all together. We arrived, weary and gasping at the walkway and made our way across. The panoramic view of London was epic and a walk on the glass floor 42 metres above the River Thames was a must. Helpfully there were small sliding windows which enabled us to take great photos without the glare of glass – a great touch.

The Towers had a couple of films and animations to sit and enjoy showing how and why the bridge was built and the East Walkway housed the “Great Bridges of the World” exhibition with the West having “The Sixties”.

Having finished with the bridge itself we followed the tour signage which took us back down the pier and we followed a yellow line outside to the Engine Rooms exhibition. This explains the original workings of the Bridge and houses the coal boilers and steam engines which have been meticulously maintained. It was like being on a ship or steam train. Being the frustrated engineer that I am I loved this part of the experience and really enjoyed playing the computer game where I was the Bridge Master and I needed to keep the bridge running, lift the bascules and not allow the traffic to gridlock – much harder than it sounds.

Overall we enjoyed our visit and could have happily spent a few hours here. I was pleased to see a number of toilets within the exhibition itself – useful to know if visiting with small children.

Rating: 4/5

Tickets cost £4.20 (child) / £9.80 (adult).

For more information or to book tickets visit www.towerbridge.org.uk.