London’s Tower Bridge unveils new glass floor for high-level walkways
The addition of new glass floor panels in the high level walkways of Tower Bridge will allow visitors to get a unique view of bridge lifts and the world below.
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge, one of London’s most iconic attractions, sees the most significant change to its Exhibition high-level walkways since it first opened in 1982.
Tower Bridge
The £1 million project is hoped to significantly enhance the visor experience with new glass floor panels. Plans for Tower Bridge Exhibition’s new £1M glass floor have been underway for two years. The West Walkway is being unveiled today (11 November), with the re-opening of the East Walkway set for 1 December. Measuring 11 metres long and 1.8 metres wide, the new glass floor will significantly enhance the attraction experience, allowing visitors to enjoy a unique viewpoint of the world-famous bridge lifts.
The flooring across each Walkway comprises of six panels, each weighing 530 kilograms, supported by a carbon steel framework weighing approximately 1,000 kilograms. The Walkways’ original steel lattice structure has been preserved under the glass. The installation took a 20-strong team to construct over a six-week period.
In conjunction with the new look Walkways, Tower Bridge Exhibition today also launches its first ever state of the art Augmented Reality App for smart devices – the Raise Tower Bridge App. The FREE App takes visitors through an augmented reality window in the glass, allowing a full 360-degree panoramic video of the Bridge being raised. As the video begins to play, visitors will be able to find different angles to look through whilst moving around and experience the incredible drop to the water below.
Free to download, the App is available from the attraction’s website, iTunes as well as Google Play Stores. Visitors without a smart device, can make use of the assisted iPads available in the Walkways.
Tower Bridge Exhibition tells the history of the Bridge through animations and displays, across its towers, high-level panoramic Walkways and the atmospheric Victorian Engine Rooms.
Christopher Earlie, Head of Tower Bridge said: “The opening of Tower Bridge marked the dawn of a legendary feat of engineering creating what is considered by many as the most famous bridge in the world. Today, 120 years on, we are extremely proud to unveil the new glass floor on the high-level Walkways – another astonishing engineering accomplishment.”
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