The chimney lift has opened at Battersea Power Station

London has gained a new rooftop viewing gallery, in the form of a glass elevator that rides up the inside one of Battersea Power Station’s chimneys and pops out of the top for a peek around London.

This is Lift109, so-called for the top of the chimney being 109 metres above sea level.

In a way, it’s two separate visitor attractions bolted together, one good and one less so. The good bit is fortunately the main reason that people will come here.

However, to get to the good bit, there’s a lump of time wasting to endure. The queue via the now ubiquitous security gate, and a more than usually sensitive metal detector, and after queueing, you’re let into a waiting area to look at some bits of history and, if you can work it out, play with controlling the power supply.

It turns out that waving your hands over a display screen animates the sculpture above your head, although it usually needs a member of staff to tell people about that as it’s not obvious.

You’re given 10 minutes in the waiting area, and candidly, on my second visit, most of the people were standing around waiting after just a few minutes in the space.

After a photo booth (which you can skip), into another waiting area as wrap-around video wall plays a load of video art, and a tiny bit of Battersea Power Station video, before at last a couple of conventional lifts open to take you up to the 12th floor.

So far, so utterly timewasting.

Fortunately, the real reason you’re here is upon you, and after a walk up a staircase that spirals around the inside of the chimney (another lift is available), you get to the glass elevator itself.

With a glass roof overhead, pretty much everyone does the same thing, which is to point cameras upwards, and film/photograph the ascent, and, having been up twice, on both occasions as the lift pops out of the top, there’s an audible gasp from the visitors.

It’s a pretty good view and being further west than the main city cluster of viewing galleries, you get a very different aspect of London unencumbered by any local buildings getting in the way.

In a way, the view of the other three chimneys adds a bit of scale to what you’re seeing in places up close, and at the moment you can still see building sites where future ultra-expensive flats will be built. But further away, the view of the skyline around London is impressive, as is the closer views of Pimlico with its much lower rise housing, railway bridge to Victoria station, and of course in the distance the City of London.

The pop-up at the top lasts a bit over 7 minutes, which sounds short, but in truth, it starts to become a bit, yeah, seen that, got my photos, what’s next, if you were up much longer.

A tip — assuming nothing changes — when going into the lift, head to the left side if you want to have your first view to be of the city, or right if you want to face towards the west.

A potential downside for photographers is the curved glass, which makes avoiding reflections, especially at night, very difficult. Even a camera hood, if you use one, would probably struggle to block out all the reflections at night.

After a few minutes at the top, and with plenty of warning from the member of staff who comes up with you, time to glide back down and exit via the gift shop back into the shopping centre that the rest of the power station has been turned into.

As a visitor attraction, yeah, it’s not bad, worth doing once to say you’ve been up and seen the view. I wish they didn’t bother with the time-wasting space on the ground floor, and certainly, the video wall felt like they were trying to pad out the experience as if the lift itself might not be quite enough to justify the price.

Sometimes less is more – they should simply let you get up and enjoy the Lift 109, and not the video waiting room.

But, having watched the other people in the lift – and I’ve been up twice, and I pretty much agree with their reactions once you’re finally at the top – it’s a pretty good view.

Tickets to go up Lift 109 are on sale now from here.

At night..

In the daytime…

London’s other viewing galleries

The Monument

The original viewing gallery, up a long spiral staircase to the top of the monument to the Great Fire of London

Westminster Cathedral

You can take a lift up the bell tower at the front of the Cathedral for restricted, but quite interesting views across parts of central London

The View from the Shard

The highest viewing gallery in London with a large two floor space, partially open to the elements at the top.

The Sky Garden

Less garden than sky, but a very large indoor conservatory stuck on top of a skyscraper is still pretty impressive, and free to visit.

The Garden at 120

A lower level space, but a huge one taking over the whole roof of a city office block. Also free to visit, and just down the road from the Sky Garden

The Post Building

One of the newer roof spaces, and this is right in the centre of London and is also free to visit.