London from above, for nothing: nine free viewpoints

The short answer

If you only do one, do Horizon 22. It is level 58 of the tallest building in the City, it is free, and nothing paid in London is meaningfully higher.

If you want the picture everyone recognises, go to One New Change, because the view is St Paul's dome framed at close range and the terrace is open from six in the morning until midnight.

If you want a drink in your hand while you do it, the Garden at 120 needs no booking at all.

The nine, and what each one is for

1. 1

   Horizon 22

   22 Bishopsgate EC2N 4BQ · level 58 · free, book ahead · Liverpool Street

   London's highest free viewing platform and the tallest building in the City. Roughly 300 degrees, with St Paul's, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, the river, the Shard and Buckingham Palace all from one floor. The lift takes 41 seconds. Book ahead, because the free tickets go, although a limited number of walk-ins are held back each day.

2. 2

   Sky Garden

   1 Sky Garden Walk EC3M 8AF · free, booking essential · Monument

   Three storeys of planting under a glass shell on top of the Walkie Talkie, and the only reason it exists is that the developer was told to put a public garden up there. Free tickets release every Monday morning, three weeks ahead, for the whole of that week, and they go within hours. Set a reminder. Open 10am to 6pm on weekdays, 11am to 9pm at weekends.

3. 3

   The Garden at 120

   120 Fenchurch Street EC3M 5BA · 15 floors up · free, no booking · Fenchurch Street

   The one nobody queues for and the one Londoners use. Fifteen storeys, open air, a proper 360 degrees, a water feature and somewhere to sit. No ticket and no booking, except for groups. Weekdays 10am to 6.30pm from October to March and to 9pm from April to September, weekends 10am to 5pm, closed on bank holidays. It is also the first stop on the City route in our walking guides, for exactly this reason.

4. 4

   One New Change roof terrace

   One New Change EC4M 9AF · sixth floor · free, open 6am to midnight · St Paul's

   Not the highest and easily the best composition. You come out of the lift and the dome of St Paul's is directly in front of you, close enough to fill a frame, with the City behind it. Open from six in the morning, which means you can have it entirely to yourself at sunrise, and until midnight, which means you can have it lit.

5. 5

   Tate Modern, Level 10

   Bankside SE1 9TG · level 10, Blavatnik Building · now a drinks and snacks space

   Ten floors up on the south bank looking straight back at St Paul's over the Millennium Bridge, which is the reverse of the One New Change shot and just as good. Tate now runs Level 10 as a drinks and snacks space, open Sunday to Thursday 10am to 5pm and Friday and Saturday until 9pm, so in winter it is one of the few you can do after dark. Tate does not say whether you can go up without buying anything, so budget for a coffee.

6. 6

   Crossrail Place Roof Garden

   Canary Wharf E14 5AR · free, no ticket · Canary Wharf

   Not a skyline view, a different kind of view. Three hundred metres of planting under a timber lattice roof, built on top of the Elizabeth line station in a drained dock. It sits on the Prime Meridian, so the planting is split into eastern and western hemispheres. Open daily until about nine.

7. 7

   OXO Tower, eighth floor

   Barge House Street SE1 9PH · free public viewing gallery

   A small public gallery on the restaurant floor, which you reach by going up in the lift and asking. Directly opposite the City, so the whole north bank lines up. Nobody who has not been told it exists ever finds it.

8. 8

   Greenwich Park, by the Observatory

   Blackheath Avenue SE10 8XJ · free, always open

   The only one on this list where the view is of London rather than from inside it. The Queen's House, the two domes of the Old Royal Naval College, the river, Canary Wharf and the City stacked in a single frame. Free, outdoors, and better at dusk than anything you pay for.

9. 9

   Primrose Hill and Parliament Hill

   NW3 · free, always open

   The two classic north London views and they are not the same. Primrose Hill is closer, lower and frames the City neatly between the trees. Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath is higher, wilder and shows you how flat and how big London actually is. Both are a protected view in law, which is why nothing has been allowed to block them.

Which need booking, and how far ahead

Horizon 22

Book on a Monday

Free timed tickets released every Monday at 10am for the following 14 days. Walk-ins by QR code at the door, not guaranteed

Sky Garden

Book three weeks ahead

Tickets release Monday mornings for the week three weeks out, and go within hours

The Garden at 120

Just turn up

Groups book at least two weeks ahead. Closed on bank holidays

One New Change

Just turn up

6am to midnight, every day

Tate Modern Level 10

Just turn up

Now a drinks space. Late on Fridays and Saturdays

Crossrail Place, OXO, the parks

Just turn up

No ticket of any kind

Sky Garden is the only one with real scarcity. If your dates are fixed, put a reminder in for the Monday three weeks before you land, and do it at nine in the morning UK time.

The paid ones, and whether they are worth it

Three of them, and the honest answer is that one is worth it and two are not, unless the thing you want is the specific experience rather than the view.

The View from The Shard

£28 to £32

The highest in the country and the only one that shows you London from outside the City looking in. Worth it once, at sunset, on a clear day, and a waste of money in cloud. The free bar on level 31 of the same building gets you most of the way for the price of a drink

London Eye

From £29 online, £39 on the day

Thirty minutes, low, and the glass fights you at midday. Ride it at dusk or not at all

Tower Bridge glass walkways

£18

You are paying for the glass floor and the Victorian engine rooms, not the height. It is a good museum with a view, not a viewpoint

A City afternoon that takes in four of them

All four are within about fifteen minutes of each other on foot, and this order works because it finishes at the one that is open latest.

• Start at the Garden at 120, no booking, straight up. Twenty minutes.
• Eight minutes west to Horizon 22 for your booked slot. Forty minutes.
• Ten minutes west again to One New Change for the dome. Twenty minutes.
• Cross the Millennium Bridge and go up to Tate Modern level 10 for the reverse of the shot you just took. On a Friday or Saturday you can do this one in the dark.

Four viewpoints, one afternoon, and the only money that changes hands is your travel and whatever you drink.

Shooting these properly

• Go on a day with weather in it. A flat blue sky makes a boring skyline photograph, and cloud with gaps in it makes a good one.
• Blue hour, the thirty minutes after sunset, is when the building lights and the sky are the same brightness. It is the only time a city photographs well from height.
• Most of the indoor ones have glass. Put the lens flat against it to kill reflections, or shoot from an angle and accept them as part of the picture.
• Tripods are not allowed at Horizon 22, Sky Garden or Tate Modern. Brace against the rail and breathe out.
• At One New Change, stand at the far end of the terrace rather than the near rail. The dome sits better in the frame with a bit of the terrace in the foreground.

What it costs