Talk:BT Tower

message: "When the GPO telecommunications services were privatised in 1981 the tower was renamed the London Telecom Tower " -- wasn't that just the split of the BT from the post office? AFAIK, privatization didn't occur till the 90s. -- Tarquin 17:48 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)
MMmm. Dunno, but it must be possible to find out ... a couple more thoughts to mull over: the thing about a "stab" of aerial - is that poetic, or just a mistake?? Also I didn't understand the "of its time" sentence and added "typically": I hope this helps. Also I hate to nitpick but I wondered where the 0.17km/h came from - is it the speed at the outside? Oh well. Nevilley 18:20 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)
I've been in it when it was rotating -- that's just about right: you can walk over the seam in the floor between the core and the restuarant without being in any danger of falling over. Nice food, too. The Anome 09:47 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)
:Thanks for sorting out the speed - I found the 0.17km/h a bit meaningless unless qualifed by where it was ... once in 22 mins is clear enough. Oh and can you also tell us who we have to be nice to to get invited in ??? :) Nevilley 19:41 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)
Clarified current uses a bit. The Anome
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BT was separated from the Post Office in 1981, and privatised in three stages - the most famous being the first 50.2% of the shares in November 1984. The other two tranches were sold in 1991 and 1993 . So the date of privatisation is 1984 for most purposes. --rbrwr
The Guardian's article on the listing  says that "unknown to the public, the tower was secretly designed to withstand a nuclear attack on London". Does anyone know any more? --rbrwr
Why has this been moved to "BT Tower (London)"? How many other "BT Tower"s are there in the world? To my knowledge, this is the only one.  -- Anon.
* BT Towers in Birmingham and on Cannock Chase,, as I noted on the page. Andy Mabbett 13:19, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming 

message: I haven't verified this yet but it is commonly said that the BT Tower (London) was originally on the Official Secrets Act which meant it was not marked on maps (landmark or otherwise) and there would technically be a penalty for taking a photography of it (almost definitely never enforced) - Presumably, the Tower was recently taken off the Official Secrets Act.
:Yes, it was. I've added a link to the Hansard report from http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199293/cmhansrd/1993-02-19/Debate-5.html Mnbf9rca 00:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Cold war use you say?I remember a BT worker telling me back in 2001 that there is a bomb shelter underneath the tower. He had to go in every six months and replace all the stocks of food held there. No references available of course.. --Anonymous Coward
I've done some original research into these matters, and therefore can't put it on Wikipedia! But a few comments: (1) The idea that taking a photo of the tower was an offence under the OSA was comprehensively thrown out in 1978 in the ABC Secrets case. (2) A cylindrical structure makes for low wind resistance, which minimises the tower's deflection in a gale. It would also reduce its vulnerability to bomb blast, but I've not seen any evidence that it was designed for that reason. (3) The tower was not part of the "Backbone" chain, which circumvented the big cities in order to avoid bomb damage. It did however handle links for air defence radar. (4) The tower is connected to the BT deep level tunnel network under London. There is even a 1965 Pathe newsreel showing the connection between the two. Harumphy 21:46, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  most of these points are fact, referenced in the article. It's also in Hansard. Obviously some elements are not always enforced. That law applies to many different things and obviously has no exception for the tower. OS maps didn't show the tower, neither does the deed for the land. Almost all civil buildings had stocked bunkers during the cold war - plenty of public evidence. Artlondon 22:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Indeed.  In 1976, commercial television even filmed "The New Avengers" there (presumably with permission!).
All the Backbone microwave towers were excluded from maps at one time. This is clearly preposterous in the case of a very tall building in the middle of London, especially one with a high profile public restaurant on top of it, but the official mind likes to be consistent. The cover story for the tower was the need to distribute the new 625 line colour TV service coming into use, and indeed Backbone did carry some of this traffic along with air defence radar data and other military stuff. When the network was being planned the defence thinking was based on an attack by fission weapons delivered by bombers, and it was thought that central London underground bunkers would survive such an attack, and the PO Tower would too, though the microwave horns would probably all be destroyed. By the time it had actually been built the world was in the H-bomb age and nothing in central London was expected to survive an all out attack. --Ef80 (talk) 12:45, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  BT Tower, Official Secret, Survivability and Backbone. 

message: All telephone exchanges and facilities operated by the Crown were deemed "prohibited places" under the Official Secrets Act 1911, and this was extended to those operated by BT by the Telecommunications Act 1984.
It is totally false to claim that the Post Office Tower had any particular special status. It was only an offence to gather information on a prohibited place if that was done to "aid the enemy", but it is a bit of a stretch to say that any court would ever have been convinced that revealing the location of the tower or photographing it in a general sense would be giving such aid.
Mauls (talk) 14:42, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Dubious

message: This article talk page was automatically added with  banner as it falls under :Category:Restaurants or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. You can find the related request for tagging here  -- TinucherianBot (talk) 08:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:FOOD]] Tagging

message: Just who was the "Doctor Bennett MP" who raised a question in parliament about the crane on the tower when it was being built?  Did he have a first name, or was it "Doctor"?  Wikipedia's list of British MPs past and present - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_MPs:_B - has two Bennetts, neither of them doctors or in parliament in 1963. Earldelawarr (talk) 20:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: "Doctor Bennett MP"

message: There's 36 floors, not 34. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU7_AerIdY0 82.2.49.195 (talk) 11:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Floor count. 

message: "Microwave links have been replaced by subterranean fibre optic links for most mainstream purposes, but the former is still in use at the tower."
: It's my understanding that the microwave links have now been removed (thereby rendering the tower's high-rise structure redundant), but I don't have a citation. Lee M (talk) 20:43, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Microwave links: removed? 

message: The article says, "The outside broadcast control is located about the former revolving restaurant, with the kitchens on floor 35".  What does "about" mean?  Is it located outside where the former revolving restaurant was?  Does it occupy the actual space, i.e. INSIDE the former revolving restaurant???  Does "about" simply mean that it occupies that floor?  What does "about" mean?  Strange.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.235.121 (talk) 23:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: "The outside broadcast control is located about the former revolving restaurant, with the kitchens on floor 35"

message: As they have been 'not present' for some time, should there not be a current image? Jackiespeel (talk) 14:14, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: The dishes

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on BT Tower. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080206202534/http://www.btplc.com:80/Innovation/News/tower.html to http://www.btplc.com/Innovation/News/tower.html
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Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 21:26, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In doing a little bit on the Eric Bedford (architect) article, I created a discrepancy between the information on the 1971 bombing in that article and the information here. Clive Aslet (2005) states it was "an IRA bomb". This article says it was actually planted by The Angry Brigade. The sources for this are the Guardian and the Bangor Evening News. I can't actually see a mention of the BT bombing in the Guardian article, though I may have missed it. The Bangor article reports a claim by the Angry Brigade but is a long way from a definitive statement that it was the AB. The AB article on Wiki doesn't mention the BT Tower. Are there any up-to-date sources that are definitive on this? KJP1 (talk) 09:01, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: As KJP1 said, the Guardian article is about the Angry Brigade, but I didn't see any mentioned of the Post Office (BT) Tower bomb; the Bangor Daily News article says that they claimed it, but there's no evidence of it (unless it came up in the Angry Brigade trial, in which case can someone link to a reference)? The common consensus is that this was in fact an IRA bomb (they claimed it as such within a few hours), whereas the AB didn't claim it until more than a day after the event. I am going to amend the article to say that the AB also claimed it as their acts. 198.102.219.141 (talk) 12:14, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: 1971 bombing

message: This  gives a different winner: clarification anyone? Jackiespeel (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  First race up 

message: As Twinkle climbing the Tower appears in the WP article on The Goodies episode Kitten Kong some mention here perhaps? Jackiespeel (talk) 19:21, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: -- The Anome (talk) 12:22, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kitten Kong 

message: I've removed the mention of the BT Tower having a "Post Office code" of YTOW as unreferenced/unverifiable. There are plenty of mentions of this on the web, but they're all from mirrors of this article. I presume this is something like a GPO exchange code, but searching those for YTOW finds nothing, either. -- The Anome (talk) 12:22, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Post Office code" YTOW 

message: What if we included this photo on this page? File:HM the Queen visiting the Post Office Tower on 17 May 1966.jpg But I need someone to verify that it actually happened. Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 07:18, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  HM the Queen visiting the Post Office Tower on 17 May 1966.jpg 

message: I think the rotating retaurant, though only open for five years, is one reason for its notability and should go in the lead. Jontel (talk) 13:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Put rotating retaurant in the lead?