At the top of Battersea Power Station, 109 metres up in the air (Image: Steffan Rhys)
It calls itself “London’s most exciting new destination” and, having just visited, I wouldn’t argue too strongly against that.
London’s landmarks are world famous and there are loads of them all over the place. From Buckingham Palace and Westminster Palace to the Shard, from Wembley Stadium to Tower Bridge to St Paul’s Cathedral, it’s a city dripping with wealth and history.
But chances are you’ve not yet been to this one, though you may well have seen it against the London skyline (or on an album cover of one of the biggest-selling bands of all time). I’m talking about Battersea Power Station, whose four enormous chimneys rise high into the London sky and tower over most of what’s around it on the banks of the Thames in west London.
As iconic as the power station is, it has only been standing in the form we all now recognise since 1955, when the second stage (and fourth chimney) was completed. At its peak, it was supplying a fifth of London’s electricity. But it was only in use another 28 years, closing down as a power station in 1983, reports MyLondon.
Battersea Power Station in 2007 when it was little more than a shell (Image: Getty Images)
This shows the area around the power station — it looks nothing like this any more and has been regenerated in a major way (Image: Jason Hawkes/Getty Images)
If you’ve not seen it in person, you may have seen it on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album when the band, at the height of their powers, tied an enormous inflatable pig to it (it came loose and landed in a field in Kent, disrupting flights in and out of Heathrow in the process). During the decades it was closed down, you may also have seen it as the ominous backdrop for films including Batman.
Construction cranes surround the Battersea Power Station in 2016 (Image: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The old power station and famous London landmark while in the process of redevelopment (Image: Getty Images)
After its closure in the early eighties, the power station was largely in a state of ruin for decades. In 2012, it was bought by an investment group. A decade on, the power station and a huge 42-acre surrounding area have been radically transformed into a thriving part of the city home to shops, bars, restaurants — oh, and apartments worth millions of pounds (there is a penthouse currently on the market for £7.5 million and Bear Grylls would be one of your neighbours — he already owns one).
Although I’d seen the power station from a distance many times, I had never been close to it. It’s only been open again since October 2022, so it really is a brand new attraction in the context of London’s centuries-old landmarks.
Battersea Power Station and the surrounding area today looks totally different than it did during the lost decades from 1983 to 2022 and is surrounded by an enormously redeveloped area full of flats, shops and restaurants (Image: Getty Images)
Having travelled down the Thames by boat from Blackfriars (a wonderful alternative to the Tube) I got off a boat at the pier directly in front of the power station and was immediately struck by both the size of the hulking power station and the shiny newness of everything around it.
While many of London’s other landmarks don’t feel that exciting any more having either visited them, or at least walked by, many times since I first visited the city as a teenager, Battersea Power Station immediately felt like a whole new adventure.
Inside opened up into a vast space with several stories dedicated to shopping, eating and drinking. There are more than 50 places to eat or drink, ranging from cafes to bars and a Gordon Ramsay restaurant called Bread Street Kitchen and Bar (there are also several more outside, and I called into one of them, Two Drops, for a quick bar snack of the crispiest roast potatoes I’d ever eaten). There’s also a cinema and a 164-room hotel.
Looking out over the vast shopping and eating space that is now Battersea Power Station (Image: Steffan Rhys)
But I was here for Lift 109, a journey up one of those famous chimneys in a glass elevator. It costs £21.50. Having bought tickets in advance, we took our place in the queue, which did take a while but not a painfully long time. Just before you enter the lift, you spent the final part of your waiting time in an interactive area learning about the power station’s history, which certainly made the time go faster for me.
Looking up the chimney of Battersea Power Station through the glass roof of Lift 109 (Image: Steffan Rhys)
The excitement was palpable (with a hint of nerves) as we entered Lift 109, aptly named for its ascent to 109 metres above ground at the chimney’s peak. The transition from the enclosed chimney interior to the breathtaking panoramic view at the top can only be described as “terrifying” at least initially.
However, that fear quickly gave way to awe. Gazing out towards the iconic Wembley Stadium arch and Royal Albert Hall in the north, and sweeping east to the Shard and Westminster Palace, was nothing short of spectacular.
The view (through rain) from the top of one of Battersea Power Station’s chimneys (Image: Steffan Rhys)
A better view from Lift 109 (Image: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
We shuffled around the lift, eager to soak in the vistas from every vantage point, even as a brief rain shower slightly obscured our view. London’s skyline has undergone an astonishing transformation in recent decades, and it’s truly remarkable to witness.
Putting any fear of heights to one side, my trip to Battersea Power Station was an absolute delight. It’s a testament to a century’s worth of extraordinary engineering and design achievements. You could easily while away an entire day here, and I wholeheartedly suggest you do just that.
How to get to Battersea Power Station
Underground: The Battersea Underground stop is on the Northern Line and is a short walk from the power station.
Boat: Several services stop at the Battersea Power Station Pier.