60 Years of the BT Tower: Signals and Sightlines (London Walking Festival 2026)

In the 60th anniversary year of the opening of the BT Tower, this gentle linear walk from Fitzrovia to Primrose Hill invites participants to reflect on the ways our built environment supplements and shapes our natural world.

Since the 1880s, St Paul’s Cathedral has benefited from protected sightlines extending deep into suburban London parks and commons. Less widely known is that the BT Tower (originally the GPO Tower) has enjoyed its own form of protection: not for aesthetic or heritage reasons, but because of its historic role as a telecommunications beacon.

For decades, the tower relied on clear, uninterrupted radio paths routed through a network of microwave stations in suburban London and the home counties. Any tall building constructed within these corridors risked causing signal loss or distortion. As a result, the BT Tower acted as a brake on overdevelopment in parts of the West End and Bloomsbury, shaping both the skyline and our relationship with public squares and parks in ways that have been less acknowledged.

Current development plans propose a conversion of the tower from telecommunications infrastructure originally designed in-house by the Ministry of Public Building and Works into a hotel development of an American multi-national hospitality brand.

On this walk, we will trace and record a series of sightlines to the BT Tower from parks, squares, and incidental green spaces, consulting historic records and images along the way.

The walk is led by artist-researcher and London National Park City Ranger Jordan Rowe and cultural historian Dr David Anderson. It forms part of a wider research project into the history of strategic communications networks and infrastructural development in Britain.

Organised as part of the London Walking Festival (1-31 May 2026).

Accessibility information:

• The meeting point is located next to Goodge Street underground station on the Northern line (Charing Cross branch). The closest station with step-free access is Tottenham Court Road, a 10 minute walk away. 
• We will walk at a gentle pace throughout, but note that the walk involves an incline to reach the summit of Primrose Hill.
• We will make a stop for participants to use the toilet facilities and/or cafe in Regents Park.
• The walk will go ahead whatever the weather so please check the forecast beforehand and dress appropriately.

Image: 1970s view of the tower as seen from the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Great Russell Street (Attribution: FOTO:FORTEPAN / Ormos Imre Alapítvány on Wikimedia Commons).