A few weeks back, Hampstead Heath tweeted a striking old image of the famous view from Parliament Hill Fields, as it looked in 1929. I used this as inspiration for a feature about the changes to the London skyline in the 50 years since.
The only problem was, with the weekly strand deadline approaching (serves us right for calling it Wednesday Picture) on both occasions I hot-footed it up to the top, all poised to snap a ‘now’ photo with which to illustrate the obvious juxtaposition, autumnal fog had all but erased the skyscrapers. In fact, the modern-day pea soupers rendered the view pretty much as it was back in the 20s.
I couldn’t even grab a modern image from elsewhere as the rate of environmental change is so fast at the moment. A scour of Google threw up plenty of shots, but none featuring the bendy-sided walkie talkie building, 20 Fenchurch Street, now a very prominent part of the late-2013 London skyline.
Luckily, the clever folk Sam and Tim at Gordon House Rd-based travel agents Ethos Travel got involved, mocking up this Instagram-tastic comparison shot in their lunch hour.
How long will it be before we need to send them up the hill again to take a revised ‘now’ picture though?
2 thoughts on “The view from Parliament Hill: then and now”
Bizarre how you’ve got a picture from 1929 clearer and of better quality than one from 2013. Wonders of progress.
St Paul’s Cathedral is dwarfed now, but at 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962. And in the 1929 photo St Martin’s Church in Gospel Oak is prominent, you would hardly notice it now.