The Thames Barrier looks best when it’s raised, and the only guaranteed time this happens is when the mechanisms are checked once a month. For exact dates and times, ring or check the website of the Thames Barrier Information Centre. Each of the 10 steel gates is 20m high and weighs 3300 tonnes.
Thames Barrier Information Centre
Brixton, Peckham & South London
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
27.81 MILES
The world’s largest and oldest continuously occupied fortress, Windsor Castle is a majestic vision of battlements and towers. Used for state occasions, it…
7.21 MILES
A splendid mixture of architectural styles, Westminster Abbey is considered the finest example of Early English Gothic. It's not merely a beautiful place…
6.07 MILES
One of London's most amazing attractions, Tate Modern is an outstanding modern- and contemporary-art gallery housed in the creatively revamped Bankside…
9.31 MILES
With its thunderous, animatronic dinosaur, riveting displays about planet earth, outstanding Darwin Centre and architecture straight from a Gothic fairy…
6.1 MILES
Sir Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old architectural masterpiece is a London icon. Towering over diminutive Ludgate Hill in a superb position that's been a…
5.08 MILES
Few parts of the UK are as steeped in history or as impregnated with legend and superstition as the titanic stonework of the Tower of London. Not only is…
5.97 MILES
Seeing a play at Shakespeare's Globe – ideally standing under the open-air "wooden O" – is experiencing the playwright's work at its best and most…
7.38 MILES
With almost six million visitors trooping through its doors annually, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, one of the oldest and finest museums in the world,…
Nearby Brixton, Peckham & South London attractions
1.33 MILES
This cable car makes quick work of the journey from the Greenwich Peninsula to the Royal Docks. Although it's mostly patronised by tourists for the views…
1.35 MILES
Although at times it does come over like an expensive advertisement for technology firm Siemens – whose groundbreaking sustainable building it inhabits –…
1.66 MILES
As the site of London’s only lighthouse, its smallest museum and the world’s longest-running song, Trinity Buoy Wharf is an enclave of quirky superlatives…
2.02 MILES
Greenwich Park is one of London’s loveliest expanses of green, with a rose garden, impressive playground, a 6th-century Anglo-Saxon burial ground and…
5. Chapel of St Peter & St Paul
2.05 MILES
With its mix of Greek revival and naval motifs, the beautiful Chapel of St Peter & St Paul, built in 1742, is decorated in an elaborate rococo style…
2.06 MILES
Designed by architect Inigo Jones, Queen's House was the UK's first classical building, and it's as enticing for its form as for its art collection. Many…
2.06 MILES
This statue in Greenwich Park memorialises General James Wolfe, celebrated for his victory over the French at the Battle of Quebec in Canada in 1759.
2.08 MILES
Home to the University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, the Christopher Wren–designed Old Royal Naval College is a…