Queen's Tower restoration

At the heart of our South Kensington Campus the Queen’s Tower, which is more than 140 years old, is the last remaining part of the original Imperial Institute building.  Repairs are required to the masonry and the copper roofing is being replaced. 

The project began in autumn 2020, after a masonry fall, and to get to this stage there have been many surveys to understand the extent of repairs, planning applications to obtain consent to carry out the works and tenders to engage the various contractors needed, including specialists, to undertake the project.

In the current phase, the scaffolding is rising around the tower, when the stone and roofing repairs will begin.  But what you see rising day by day is the scaffolding equivalent of an iceberg, below ground there is just as much going on in engineering terms to support the structure above ground.

The Queen’s Tower sits over the original basements that were reinforced in the 1960s as part of the works to convert the tower into a standalone structure. The basements are linked by tunnels to many of the other buildings on the South Kensington Campus. Within the basement propping has been installed directly beneath the aboveground structure to ensure the loads are transferred to the foundations.

Health and safety is paramount, and the scaffolding, both above and below ground, provides not only support for the tower, and safety for the Imperial community, but also the safe working structure required.

Erection of the highly engineered scaffolding was paused recently, as a supplier in the contractual chain went into administration and while Imperial has undertaken further health and safety checks of the design of the scaffolding.

While a new supplier was sourced surveys and other works continued to many aspects of the tower.

When complete, the scaffolding will provide access for a full survey of the tower and for the comprehensive cleaning of the stonework.  Once it has been cleaned, the detail repairs to the stonework will be confirmed and undertaken. The opportunity will also be taken to replace the timber louvres around the bell chamber and to repair or replace the flat roofs to the balconies.

The length of scaffolding being erected around the Queen’s Tower is 60km.  This would stretch from South Kensington to our Silwood Park campus via White City, St Mary’s, Charing Cross, Hammersmith and the Chelsea and Westminster hospital campuses if the scaffold tubing were laid end-to-end. 

The perimeter hoarding, the loading bay that you see, along with protocols for noise management will help minimise the disruption to the campus.

When the scaffolding is dismantled the stone steps and plinth will then be repaired.

The works are now scheduled to complete in January 2026, while every effort to bring that forward will be made.

This project will provide at least 50 years of further life to the external fabric of the highly visible icon of Imperial. 

Read more about the restoration work in People, Places, Spaces magazine.

 Watch the work underway on the tower on YouTube.

A time lapse video of work up until March 2023

Watch a time lapse video of work on the tower until April 2023

‌South Kensington Campus Coordination Plan‌‌ [PDF]‌

South Kensington ongoing projects programme [PDF]‌‌

South Kensington ongoing projects plan‌‌‌‌ [PDF]‌‌ ‌

Evelyn Gardens ongoing projects plan [PDF]‌‌

Other Campuses ongoing projects programme [PDF]‌‌

Hammersmith ongoing projects plan [PDF]‌‌

White City North ongoing projects plan [PDF]‌‌

White City South ongoing projects plan [PDF]‌‌

Silwood Park ongoing projects plan [PDF]‌‌

Removing steam and reducing our carbon emissions

A bold project removing a significant amount of legacy steam generating infrastructure from South Kensington Campus and upgrading one of the largest Low Temperature Heating System networks in London is nearing completion.

South Kensington Campus is home to one of London’s largest Combined Heat and Power (CHP) stations. The 60-year-old steam network and quarter of a century old boilers have now been removed and three heat networks have been consolidated into one which means:

• 180^oC steam has been removed from circulation around the campus and plant rooms
• Carbon dioxide emissions will reduce by circa 2,400 tonnes/year and save over £4m per year 
• This will help Imperial met net zero carbon by 2040.

Past articles charting this project:
You can read our latest update on the project on our news pages.
You can read more about this grant and match funded project on our news pages.

The Imperial estate is huge. There are more than 100 buildings including residences, spread over eleven campuses and other sites. Because of that complexity our decarbonisation plan to achieve Net Zero by 2040 had to be drawn up with the help of experts. Consultants Arup have been working with us on this for more than a year.  Arup surveyed our estate, ruled out buildings that are new, (White City South Campus is already designed to be fossil-fuel free and low carbon) or set to be replaced, or decommissioned. They were able to identify where spending will have the most impact and can be done ‘early, next and later’ (later tending to mean expensive and less cost-effective infrastructure works). 

Our plans have been approved by University Management Board, and we will beginning on those works identified for the next five years shortly. 

You can download a summary of the report in the tab on this page.

Read a summary article.