Queen's Tower

The Queen's Tower is situated in the South Kensington Campus of Imperial College London, England. It is 287 feet (87 m) tall with a copper covered dome at its top. To reach the base of the dome from the ground on foot, one must ascend a series of narrow spiral staircases, which comprise 324 steps in total. The tower used to be the central tower of the Imperial Institute, and is now the sole remaining part of that building. The Institute was founded on Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, and its partial demolition began in 1957. At that time it was generally known as the Collcutt Tower, after its designer, the Victorian architect Thomas Edward Collcutt. The tower itself would have been demolished along with the rest of the...