Search all showsFestivalcast – Waterloo Festival Podcast
Series 3 Episode 2: The Waterloo Shot Tower – A Biography
The Shot Tower stood nearly 200 ft tall on the river front by Waterloo Bridge for nearly 140 years until the early 1960s, an unmistakeable and important landmark which featured in the everyday life of Londoners. Yet today it is barely remembered. In this podcast, made specially for the Waterloo Festival, Nick Rampley traces the history of this all but forgotten building and of the industries that characterised Lambeth’s riverside, giving particular focus – on the 70th anniversary of the Festival of Britain – to the role the Tower played in the South Bank exhibition.
Voices of Gerald Barry, Charles Dickens, Albert Smith, William Makepeace Thackeray, Strand Magazine Correspondent and Allied Lead marketing read by Graham Treacher
Hugh Casson’s recording: British Library Archives
Recorded by Nick Rampley in April and May 2021
Additional recording by Deborah Padfield
Music: Vaughan Williams – Symphony no.6. Sir Andrew Davis & The BBC Symphony Orchestra (1991)