Search for the Skylon

Your author really hasn't talked enough about the new galleries at the Museum of London, and if you still haven't visited, you really should. For where else could you find a scale model of the Skylon, the iconic tower built on the South Bank to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951.


Rumour has it that the sculpture, which once stood 90 metres high in the space around what is now Jubilee Gardens near the London Eye, followed the trend for tearing down artistic treasures and throwing them into the River Lea, in a fit of post-war austerity.

Regardless, the Skylon is no longer with us, and whilst Wikipedia fiends claim that there are plans to search the River for it later in the year, if you want to get a sense of what it was like, you will have to visit the Museum of London and see a model of it, or a few bits and bobs which have been retained.

For more on the history of the Skylon, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(tower)