BT Tower: The history of the London landmark sold for £275m

Get our free Morning Headlines email with news from reporters around the world

Sign up for our free Morning Headlines email

London’s iconic BT Tower is to be transformed into a hotel following a £275m deal with US hotel developer MCR Hotels.

BT has owned the tower since 1984 but says it is selling it because it no longer serves its former purpose for communications.

Brent Matthews, property director at BT Group, said: “BT Tower is located in the heart of London and has played a vital role in carrying the nation’s calls, messages and TV signals, but increasingly it is “Increasingly, communications are being distributed through other networks.” means. “

“This agreement with MCR will enable BT Tower to take on a new purpose and preserve this iconic building for decades to come.”

Here is the history of BT Tower from its construction to its latest sale.

Commissioning and construction: 1961-1964

This tower was commissioned by the General Post Office. Its main purpose was to support microwave antennas that carried communications traffic from London to other parts of the country.

In the late 1940s, a very short iron lattice tower was installed on the roof of the Museum Telephone Exchange, providing a ‘line of sight’ television link between London and Birmingham. With skyscrapers planned for construction in London, developers have had to look above and beyond to maintain these vital links.

The tower was designed by Eric Bedford and GR Yates, principal architects for the Department of Public Buildings and Works. The building is glass-covered concrete with an iconic narrow cylindrical shape chosen to facilitate communications antennas.

The first 16 floors were reserved for technical equipment and power, followed by a 115-foot section for microwave antennas. Above this he had six floors of suites, a kitchen and a revolving restaurant. Construction he began in 1961 and finished in 1964. Although the crane has been at the top of the tower for most of this time, some feared it would become the main breadwinner.

Opened in 1965

The then GPO Tower was opened in 1965 by Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who called the Mayor of Birmingham to test the tower’s facilities.

It was opened to the public the following year by Postmaster General Tony Benn and Billy Butlin, owner of the Butlin’s resort chain. Queen Elizabeth II had visited a few days earlier.

Butlins ran a revolving restaurant called Top of the Tower on the 34th floor. It rotated once every 23 minutes. In its first year, GPO Tower’s observation deck attracted just under 1 million visitors and more than 100,000 diners.

1971 bombing

In the early hours of October 31, 1971, a bomb exploded on the roof of the restaurant’s men’s restroom. The explosion damaged buildings and vehicles up to 400 meters away, but no one was injured. Passersby said they saw people collecting broken glass and debris as “souvenirs.”

The person who claimed responsibility for the bombing was a member of the Angry Brigade, an anarchist group active in the early 1970s. Some accused the IRA of being responsible, but the IRA denied this.

Restaurants were closed to the public for several months. Butlin’s lease ended in 1980, and public access to the building was completely shut down the following year.

Taken over as tallest building and rebranded as BT: 1980-1992

In 1980, the Tower’s title as London’s tallest building ended after almost 20 years. The 200m-tall NatWest Tower stood directly above the 189m-tall GPO Tower. Towers in London’s Canary Wharf and Bank areas have been dwarfing both areas since 1990.

GPO’s telecommunications business was demerged in 1981 and privatized in 1984, with the building’s name changed to British Telecom Tower. It was rebranded again in 1992, with a more snappy name and became known as BT Tower.

20th century

In 2003, the tower was made a Grade II listed building due to its historical importance and iconic status. In 2011, it was negotiated to remove part of the decommissioned microwave antenna and expose the tower’s concrete core. Most of the tower’s microwave links have now been replaced with underground fiber optics.

A color display was installed at the top of the tower in the early 2000s, but was replaced by the tower’s eye-catching LED display in 2009 as the countdown to the 2012 London Olympics began. Currently, it most commonly displays the BT logo, animated to appear as if it is constantly rotating, and may also display news events. In April 2017, I had a Windows error message for almost an entire day.

In 2024, BT announced the sale of the tower to MCR Hotels, which plans to preserve it as a hotel.