View from the Monument, London 1984

This 1984 view from the Monument looks east along the Thames towards Tower Bridge, with the river cutting through a City skyline crowded with office blocks, building sites and cranes. HMS Belfast is moored on the right-hand side of the river below the bridge, while the foreground is filled with rooftops, scaffolding and new commercial development around Lower Thames Street and the eastern edge of the City. The number of tower cranes and partly completed buildings gives the scene a strong sense of London in transition, as older riverfront premises were being replaced or heavily altered during the development boom of the 1980s. It is a particularly useful record of the eastern City before the later wave of glass towers, when Tower Bridge still dominated the distant view and the Thames-side skyline was a mix of surviving older buildings, post-war offices and active construction.