A few things you may not know about the Tower
Spinnaker Tower is now 18 years old! We’re proud to still be providing memorable experiences to all of our guests. It’s been an exciting 18 years to say the least, we’ve welcomed royalty, held over 400 weddings and broken a Guinness world record!
1.Since our grand opening on 18th October 2005, we have seen over 5 million visitors; and that doesn’t even include our party guests!
2. We have 2 team members who have been with us for the entire 18 years. Paul Pycroft, our Reservations Executive and Louy Daniel Lative, our guest services team member. They know more about the Tower than anyone else! If you’re lucky enough to be here when one of them is working then definitely make the most of their knowledge.
3. The high speed lift in one of the legs of the tower travels upwards at an angle and takes just 28 seconds to reach View Deck 1 at 100 metres.
4. Our glass floor was for a long time the largest glass floor in Europe and is made up of four panes of glass, each of which measure 2050 x 950 mm, making the floor a total area of 7.79m2. The overall thickness is 60mm and can hold a total weight of 288 stone; the equivalent of 2 black rhinos!
5. In high winds, the Tower can flex up approximately 150mm. If you feel it move when you’re up there; don’t worry it’s perfectly safe.
6. Our popular high tea experience lives up to its name, served 105 metres up in the Clouds Café. That’s over half a million fruit scones that have been scoffed!
7. There are 560 stairs to the top of Spinnaker Tower.
8. There are a total of 50 show lights and 7 aircraft warning lights on Spinnaker Tower.
9. There are 120 windows in the tower. These are cleaned every month by our abseiling team. Not many people can say that’s their job!
10. The lift can transport 350 people up the tower every hour. It travels at 14km per hour with the maximum capacity of 26 people at one time.
11. Famous visitors to the tower include Kate Middleton, Emma Bunton, Alisha Dixon, Richard Branson, Paul Martin, The Overtones, Melinda Messenger, George Sampson, Ben Ainslie and Jordan North who was searching for fellow Radio 1 DJs, Nick Grimshaw and Greg James as well as Presidents & Prime Ministers!
12. The oldest person in the world to abseil is Doris Long, MBE, who aged 101 years and 55 days abseiled down the Spinnaker Tower on 12th July 2015 breaking the Guinness World Record. This was her 14th abseil after she took up the activity aged 85. The Spinnaker Tower is 170m (560 ft) high in total and she abseiled from 92.96m (305 ft).
13.Spinnaker Tower’s legs were built using a ‘slip forming’ method which involves pouring concrete in a continuously moving form. Whilst ‘slip forming’ is not a very unusual method, it is believed that the Spinnaker Tower construction was the first time such a method had been used on hexagonal legs not at right angles to the base – the Tower’s legs are constructed at an angle of approximately 2 degrees, eventually merging at View Deck 1 level.
14. Over 30,000 people have taken on the famous Spinnaker abseil challenge since it opened in 2011!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our guests who have visited us in the last over the years and we look forward to welcoming many more.
