Every year we seem to be greeted by more and more consumer polls each time we open a newspaper. There seem to be endless lists of which is the most famous, most visited, most iconic or tallest building in the UK? Most of the ones that make these lists tend to be ones that you visited with your primary school in the eighties or that you always meant to go and see but never got round to. That got us thinking, which buildings are the most mysterious or least visited? Which ones do you never visit because quite simply you can’t?
A few beers later, and as normal, this discussion was still raging and we boiled it down to two main groups: Those buildings belonging to the Armed Forces and those belonging to Government.
The next morning we started looking into it and quickly decided that short of delivering a petition for an extra bank holiday in July we weren’t ever getting into Downing St. We did however find out that you can ask your MP for a free ticket to tour the houses of parliament. We’ve put our name down for tickets and will let you know what we find out.
The big surprise for us was that each year the government operates an open buildings weekend that allows you to go behind the scenes of some of the more famous buildings that are open to the public. The recently completed City Hall in London is one of these and is open today for the public. Tickets are free and its first come first served. It’s located opposite the Tower of London and the nearest tube is London Bridge. Other buildings will be available through the full Open House London project in September.
Find what buildings are available to visit
We also discovered that the navy hosts a series of open days throughout the summer, primarily at their naval air stations. HMS Yeovilton hosts its day on August.
Three of the names at the top of our mysterious list weren’t even permanent buildings at all. They were a royal navy warship, a nuclear submarine and Concorde. While a submarine might be hard to get onboard (without getting shot) a navy warship and Concorde seemed a damn sight easier. There are blah concords in museums around the UK and many of them will allow you into the cockpit itself.
For the navy warship try HMS Belfast which is permanently stationed on
the Thames as if it was protecting Tower Bridge. Tickets start from
just blah and it is open every day except blah and blah
Tickets to tour the Tower of London
Tickets to visit HMS Belfast
Sean Collins
15/06/08
Comments