POV: you’re climbing Imperial's Queen’s Tower on reopening day!

POV: you’re climbing the Queen’s Tower on reopening day! Phew, what a view! Queen’s Tower facts: 1. The Queen’s Tower is 287 feet tall and has 324 steps 2. You can see for 20 miles from the top of the tower 3. The Tower is all that remains of the Imperial Institute, built to support research into the resources and raw materials of the Empire and to provide a meeting place for overseas visitors 4. The Imperial Institute was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt in the neo-renaissance style 5. When the Queen’s Tower was opened in 1893, over 25,000 people were present, including Queen Victoria 6. The names of the artisans and foremen who built the tower are inscribed in stones fixed around the dome at the top 7. The Queen’s Tower has ten bells, collectively known as the Alexandra Peal, named after Alexandra, Princess of Wales 8. Work was carried out between 1966 and 1968 to enable the Tower to be free-standing. It was engineered by Imperial’s Professor of Soil Mechanics, Professor Sir Alec Skempton and his team in the Civil Engineering Department. This involved creating massive foundations and then substantially rebuilding the lower portion of the Tower