We look back on a lost form of London transport that you probably never used.
It was London's only funicular railway. Well, sort of. The funny diagonal lift beside the Millennium Bridge didn't quite match the definition of that transport mode, but it was fun and vehicular, and could therefore be portmanteau-ed into a funicular. Now it's gone.
Technically, this was an inclined lift (or inclined elevator to non-Brits). At the push of a button, the single carriage would carry you along the sloped track from the north bank of the Thames up to Peter's Hill — the pedestrian approach to St Paul's. Opened in December 2003, it was a novel way of bypassing the stairs for anyone with mobility issues, heavy luggage, push chairs or TikTok content needs.
This minimalist railway was not just unusual, it was unique. Nowhere else in London had a diagonal rail system at the time. Such was the pride of its custodians, the City of London Corporation, that they gave it a grandiloquent name: The Millennium Inclinator.
They even provided the City Surveyor's phone number, should the inclinator be out of service. This, unfortunately, was often the case. The lift was exposed to the elements and ran unattended, so it was prone to mechanical failures and vandalism. As a transport option, it clearly had its ups and downs.
Plus, as a one-of-a-kind solution, it was costly to find parts and make repairs. A 2019 report found that it had cost £1.3 million to maintain over its 16 years of operation. Only about 115 people were using it per day (a large proportion of whom, we'd wager, were people like us, riding it out of novelty rather than need).
The end came in 2021 when the building adjacent to the bridge was demolished to make way for Millennium Bridge House. The sloped wonder was stripped out and replaced by a more conventional, and hopefully more reliable, lift instead. These works were done as part of the developer's 'Section 106' commitments to improving the public realm.
All good for accessibility, but it meant that the Millennium Inclinator was no more.
Happily, London has gained five new inclined lifts. The first was an indoor version of the inclinator at Greenford Tube station, which we visited soon after it debuted in 2015:
Then, in 2022, the opening of the Elizabeth line brought an additional four inclined lifts — two each at Liverpool Street and Farringdon. They run alongside the escalators at the same slope and are said to be more efficient than vertical lifts. They're only a few years old, but one of the Farringdon lifts is already haunted:
And, so, the pioneering Millennium Inclinator is no more, but its spirit very much lives on.
With thanks to the City Bridge Foundation for confirming a few points in this story.
