Skylon (tower) Article Index for
Skylon
 

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Skylon (tower)




A few days before the King and Queen visited the exhibition in May 1951, some students scaled the Skylon at midnight and attached a London University Air Squadron scarf to a pole 50 feet from the top. An unfortunate workman was sent up the next day to retrieve it.

Questions were asked in Parliament regarding the danger to visitors from lightning-strikes to the Skylon, and the papers reported that it was duly roped off at one point, in anticipation of a forecast thunderstorm.

In spite of its popularity with the public, the cost of dismantling and re-erecting the Skylon elsewhere (£30,000) was too much for a government struggling with Post-War austerity. It was scrapped in 1952 when the rest of the exhibition was dismantled, cut into pieces and apparently turned into ashtrays.


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REFERENCES

  • Articles from ''The Times'' between 1951 and 1952