It's 10 years since the glass walkways at Tower Bridge were installed.
How do you improve on an icon like Tower Bridge? By installing glass floors on the high-level walkways 42 metres above the Thames, of course! The glass floor in the west walkway opened on 10 November 2014, followed by another set of glass panels on the east walkway, on 1 December 2014. The job took 20 workers six weeks, but it was worth it; to date, over 7.2 million visitors have ventured over the glass. Horace Jones must be kicking himself that he didn't come up with this.
What exactly is the point of a glass floor anyway? From up here, visitors can watch road traffic (inc. taxis and red buses) stream below, or—when the bascules are open—river traffic sail on through. Some are even fortunate enough to witness one of the bridge lifts in action. The walkways also provide what is perhaps the best vantage point of the London Marathon anywhere.
Can you use the walkways for anything else? And how! There have been numerous proposals, weddings, yoga classes... they've even been used as a literal cat walk (apparently 4,500 dogs, cats and other animals have strutted across the walkway). Back in March 2024, the artist Anahita Harding climbed into a sleeping bag and laid on the walkway for eight and a half hours. If that doesn't cure your fear of heights, nothing will.
How exactly do you clean a walkway hovering 42 metres above the Thames? With great difficulty! Or to be more precise, by having a cleaner dangle beneath it, like so:
So where does Tower Bridge go from here? How about installing some fake cracking glass panels like they have on the walkway around the East Taihang Mountains in China? That'll liven things up — especially the wedding receptions.
Seriously though, any new glass floor action on the horizon? When it opens in 2025, V&A Storehouse East, will invite you to walk over glass directly above the ornate Agra Colonnade. We've already had the pleasure, but press day was strictly no photos, so you'll have to imagine it for now.
Anyway, happy 10th birthday to Tower Bridge's glass walkways! Oh yeah, one more thing — the glass was actually replaced in June 2024. So are the walkways 10 years old, or four months old? Sorry to be a pane pain.
