View for a thrill

A trip to the top of one of London's tallest residential tower blocks

Should you ever get the chance to go to the top of one of the three Barbican towers then you'd be a fool not to take it up.

A perk of working for LondonTown.com is that people often phone up offering interesting excursions and activities around the capital. This month the call was from the City of London Corporation, who own and manage the iconic Barbican Estate, which houses more than 4,000 people in 21 separate blocks.

This July, the estate celebrated the 40th anniversary since its official opening - and what better place to cut the birthday cake and have a glass of champagne than at its highest point, the viewing platform of Cromwell Tower, one of the three 404-foot-high blocks that dominate the Cripplegate skyline?

So, up we went 40 floors in the lift one windy, slightly overcast morning. We - a group of journalists, photographers and Barbican residents / luminaries - then climbed through a few service rooms, up a narrow, steep staircase, before surfacing on top of the concrete, Corbusier-style carbuncle.

In between speeches, sipping Bubbly and devouring cake, we got the chance to meet John Dixon, one of the longest-serving residents of the Barbican. The 64 year old has occupied one of the lower penthouses since 1972 - a 37-year tenure which is only beaten by a pair of co-habiting brothers, both formerly majors in the army.

Dixon, whose soft, honeyed tones recalled those of Kenneth Williams, used to be a member of cabin crew aboard BA Concorde - a period he called "the best of my life". One of his many anecdotes included the time he was called in and reprimanded for being over-familiar with the passengers. "It was stupid," he said, "because Paul and Linda had told me explicitly not to use their surname in order to keep a low profile."

Being on the roof of Cromwell Tower certainly does have its advantages - you don't have to see the Tower itself, while the most westerly of the remaining Barbican skyscrapers, Lauderdale Tower, is entirely obscured by the middle column, Shakespeare Tower.

For despite the protestations of many, it must be said that London's tallest residential blocks are not the prettiest of sights. If the British Olympic fund was given a pound for every tourist wandering daily on the Southbank who thought "what are those grim eyesores yonder?" then the Games would be, um, around £100 cheaper.

Designed by the architects Chamberlain, Powell and Bon, the concrete towers, with their trademark jutting balconies, are seen by many as blotches on recent British architectural history. They may have a Grade II listed status, but let's remember that's for "brutalist architecture", which kind of says it all.

Like the much-maligned (but now puzzlingly-revered) 30-storey Trellick Tower in Ladbroke Grove - designed by a man so despised by Ian Fleming that his name was given to the Bond villain Goldfinger - the Barbican Towers are both the symbol of the modernist dream and the failure of the Corbusier ideal in one.

Still, architectural merits aside, it can't be denied that the view from the top is staggering, to say the least. On a clear day you can see from Hampstead Heath to Battersea Power Station, from the new Wembley Stadium to Canary Wharf - and all that's beyond and in between.

In the immediate vicinity, it's hard to picture the utter dereliction that occupied the site upon which the Barbican grew. The Blitz completely destroyed the 35-acre area to the extent that the living population of Cripplegate come 1951 was just 48. What you now see at the foot of these three giants is proof of life rising from the rubble, a purported sense of order without monotony.

Picking out the London landmarks from this immense vantage point is an insatiable activity in itself and while the spectacle is not as instantly rewarding as, say, the view from atop Centre Point, the fact that you are in the open air adds a certain frisson to proceedings. Being at such a height is certainly not for the faint-hearted but it is worth the fright if only for the alternative perspective afforded of the City (how else would you know that many of those swanky new buildings have lush gardens on their roofs?).

Of course, very few, if not any, of you will get the chance to carry out such an experience, but there are still many private buildings which the public can visit. For example, on the weekend of 19-20 September, Open House sees nearly 700 buildings in London that are usually closed to the public open their doors to visitors - free of charge.

Some of the interesting places usually on offer are Lambeth Palace, Lloyds of London, the Bank of England, the Channel 4 building, the Foreign Office, Portcullis House, Mansion House and most of the 100 or so City churches. The top floor of the Gherkin has been included in the past - although queues were four hours long.

Such opportunities are there for the taking and are what makes London such a special city to live in. Last June, during that incredible hot patch that has seemingly eluded us since, many of London's private squares and gardens were open to the public in a similar venture. For those who don't like heights, the chance to tread on ground usually reserved for private residents may seem more appealing than a one-way lift to the apex of Cromwell Tower. Personally, I enjoyed doing both.

Fantastic Mr Fox

American film director Wes Anderson - the man responsible for The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited - will open this year's London Film Festival on 14th October with British film Fantastic Mr Fox. Shot in a London studio the animated comedy based on a Roald Dahl book is set in the UK and produced in the UK but voiced by American actors George Clooney and Meryl Streep - who are also expected at to make an appearance at the high profile two week film festival.

Battle of Trafalgar

The National Gallery's director Nicholas Penny is not impressed with the pedestrianised part of Trafalgar Square - the north section right outside his gallery door does tend to attract buskers and pavement painters. Apparently he preferred the days when it was flooded with traffic not cluttered with unsightly people. Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth project hasn't done anything to improve the situation. "Would any of the grim generals and admirals on the surrounding plinths have approved?" Waldemar Januszczak asks in The Times. "Not one of them. It is the best reason for doing this." Tempting to add the disapproving Penny to the list.

Ode to a Poet

The Hampstead house where John Keats wrote some of his best-loved poems, including Ode to a Nightingale has reopened after almost two years of closure for restoration with funding from a Heritage Lottery grant. When Keats moved here in 1818 he met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne, the girl next door. Their affair, tragically cut short when the poet died at 25 years old, has inspired a new film by Jane Campion, Bright Star, due for release this autumn. The film, starring Ben Whishaw as Keats and Abbie Cornish as Fanny, has already won critical acclaim following its Cannes airing. Now you can visit the very bedroom where Fanny slept, one of the newly opened rooms at Keats House.

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