At 309.6 meters high, The Shard dwarfs other London high-rises, and seems to curiously move around the London sky-line – never quite being where you expect it when viewed from afar.
When it’s officially open to the public on Feb 1st, access to the viewing platforms on the 69th and 72nd floors will cost £25 per person, but for a short soft-opening / shakedown / preview time, free tickets were available to residents of Southwark. I got to visit today with one of said residents.
The entrance for the viewing platform is located on Joiner Street, away from the main entrances to the shops and offices sections of the building. The displays and ticket scanners in the reception area were misbehaving when we arrived, but look promising for the public opening. There is airport-style metal detectors and x-rays to negotiate before you get access to the lifts to the top.
The journey to the top is by two lifts, each rising 30+ floors in a little over 20 seconds, a peak speed of 6 m/s. There is no sudden lurch of acceleration either going up or down, these are very well engineered machines. From the second lift there is a small flight of stairs to climb to the enclosed viewing platform (the disabled lift was out of action), and a further set of stairs takes you to the open air platform.
Everything is below you. Even the tall buildings are below you. Helicopters are below you. Airplanes and several more floors of the building are the only things above you. Tower-42 and the Gherkin on the north side of the Thames are the only building that even look high from The Shard, but you can quite clearly see the tops of their roofs.
The glass windows will take a lot of cleaning, everywhere you look people are reaching out to touch the glass before stepping closer to the edge – to reassure themselves there is something between them and oblivion. Even with filters and some careful positioning it’s hard to avoid window reflections on photographs.
The gift shops are well stocked with fridge magnets, tea-towels and stuffed foxes. Prices are not low, £3 for a small magnet, £8 for a box of Tea and £15+ for a fox, considering you’ve already spent £25 to get here.
The views really are amazing, but not £25 of amazing. If the price included a drink, or snack or something else then I’d feel the price was justified, I think perhaps £10 would be a more visitor-friendly admission charge.
Worth a visit – see if you can get a cheap deal. Here’s the rest of my Shard photos.