The free view at the top of the Walkie Talkie exists because a developer had to promise it to get planning permission.
That promise is a Section 106 agreement signed in April 2007, and it fixed the hours the garden still keeps. Ten to six on weekdays, eleven to nine at weekends. Free entry is real, and it is the reason to come. What catches people out is that you still cannot just turn up, because the timed tickets are released weeks ahead in one weekly batch and the good slots go.
Sky Garden Tickets
Entry is free, but it needs a timed ticket booked in advance, and those are released every Monday morning three weeks ahead. When the free slots for your dates have gone, these are the paid ways up.
Goes up before the public slots start, with a pastry and a hot drink included. The quietest the place gets, and the pick if you want photographs without a crowd in them. The outdoor terrace is not included and does not open this early.
🍳 Breakfast at Larch with Garden Entry
Breakfast downstairs at Larch, which is at street level opposite the entrance rather than up in the garden, then an entry ticket for the garden itself. Useful if you missed the free-ticket window.
🥂 Music Night Entry with a Glass of Champagne
Evening entry while the DJ or live band is on, with a welcome glass of champagne and a non-alcoholic swap if you want one. Standing access only, and over-18s.
ℹ️ Why book in advance
- Free slots are released in one weekly batch, and the weekend and evening times are the ones that vanish first.
- A booked slot is the only way to be sure of getting in on a particular date.
- The paid tickets cover the hours the free ones do not, before the garden opens and after six in the evening.
ℹ️ Good to know
- The free visit is one hour from the time you enter, not two. The two-hour figure on paid packages is the length of the package.
- You queue even with a ticket. The queue forms along Fenchurch Street and Philpot Lane, and pre-booked ticket holders keep to the right-hand side.
- Bring photographic identification, and make sure the name matches the booking.
- The outdoor terrace is excluded from the early-access and dining tickets, and it opens later in the morning than the garden does.
- Arrive more than fifteen minutes after your slot and you will most likely be turned away and asked to rebook.
Highlights
Quick Links:
Plan Your Visit
Entry has always been free, and it has always been rationed. What decides your visit is when the slots appear, and which paid route makes sense once they have gone.
- Free timed slots are released every Monday morning, three weeks ahead, for the whole of that week. Bank holiday Mondays are skipped.
- A week showing nothing at all is more often a closure than a sell-out, so check the closure dates before you assume it is full.
- Paid tickets cover the hours the free ones do not, before the garden opens in the morning and after six in the evening.
- A table at Darwin Brasserie or Fenchurch Restaurant replaces the free ticket outright, which is the reliable way in when slots have gone. Larch does not count, because it is at street level.
- Walk-ins exist but are never guaranteed, and depend on there being space on the day.
Our full guide to Sky Garden tickets → covers the release mechanic, the closure calendar and every paid route up.
The garden and its outdoor terrace do not keep the same hours, and that gap is where most plans come unstuck.
- Monday to Friday: 10am to 6pm.
- Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays: 11am to 9pm.
- The outdoor terrace closes at 6pm every day, so at weekends it shuts three hours before the garden does, and it opens later in the morning than the building.
- Security can close the terrace at any time in bad weather, without advance warning.
- The first Monday of most months is a maintenance closure until 6pm.
See Sky Garden opening hours → for the bars, the restaurants and the best times to go.
The entrance is a dedicated door on Philpot Lane, at the south-west corner of 20 Fenchurch Street, not the office lobby. A lift takes you from there to level 35.
- Tube: Monument, on the Circle and District lines only. It connects underground to Bank, which adds the Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines and the DLR.
- Other stations: Tower Hill, Aldgate, Bank and Mansion House are all under ten minutes on foot.
- Rail: Fenchurch Street is the closest, four or five minutes away. Cannon Street and London Bridge are the other useful arrivals.
- Bus: stops T and W on route 40 are the nearest to the building, and plenty of routes stop along Gracechurch Street and King William Street.
- By car: not worth it. There is no visitor parking, the building sits inside the Congestion Charge and ULEZ zones, and a taxi to Philpot Lane is the sensible version of arriving by car.
Full directions, including step-free routes, are on how to get to Sky Garden →
Sky Garden, 1 Sky Garden Walk, London EC3M 8AF. The visitor entrance is on Philpot Lane.
Sky Garden
1, Sky Garden, Sky Garden Walk, London EC3M 8AF, UK · Google Maps
Sky Garden is step-free throughout the visitor route, and the things most likely to catch you out are security and luggage rather than the building itself.
- Lifts run from street level on both Philpot Lane and Rood Lane, and there are further lifts inside to move between the garden levels.
- Assistance dogs are welcome under the Equality Act 2010 and must stay on a lead. No other animals are allowed.
- Airport-style security screening applies to everyone on arrival.
- There is no left luggage and large bags and suitcases are not permitted, so a suitcase is a problem rather than an inconvenience.
- Contact the venue in advance if you need anything arranged.
What to See and Do
The View
Levels 35 to 37 of a 160-metre tower, with the garden itself sitting about 155 metres up and a 360-degree wrap that most London viewing platforms cannot offer. The Thames, the Shard, Tower Bridge and the whole eastern half of the City are laid out in front of you.
The sightlines are the thing. The main platform faces the Shard, so that is the shot everyone comes away with. For St Paul’s and Canary Wharf, walk up to the upper terraces where the planting is.
The Planting
Designed by the landscape architects Gillespies and installed by idverde, the planting runs as a narrative on the evolution of plants across three zones, from a shade-tolerant forest through a transition zone to flowering species. The top terrace has tree ferns and fig trees and stays cool and shaded, the middle terrace has ancient cycads, and the lowest is the colourful one.
The species list leans drought-resistant Mediterranean and South African. African lily, red hot poker, bird of paradise, French lavender and rosemary. What it is not is a park you can walk around. This is planted borders and staircases inside a glass atrium, and the people who leave disappointed are almost always the ones who arrived expecting a garden in the ordinary sense.
The Open-Air Terrace
The only genuinely outdoor part of the visit, and the part most worth planning around. It closes at 6pm every day of the week, which means a weekend booking after six is indoors, and a sunset slot in winter is behind glass.
It also opens later than the building, generally somewhere between ten and eleven, so the earliest breakfast and early-access sittings see the indoor space only. Security can close it at any time in bad weather without warning, which in practice means wind as much as rain.
Sky Garden vs Horizon 22, the Garden at 120 and the Shard
Sky Garden is not London’s highest free view and should not pretend to be. Horizon 22 at 22 Bishopsgate is free, higher, on level 58, and visitors report that walking up usually works even when it shows as fully booked. The Garden at 120 needs no booking at all, is properly outdoors and is quieter, though it is a lot lower. Tate Modern’s viewing level is another free option south of the river.
What Sky Garden has that none of them do is the combination. The planting, the full 360-degree wrap, an outdoor terrace and somewhere to sit down with a drink. Against the Shard, which is paid and much higher, people who have done both tend to come down on Sky Garden for value.
If I am honest, the free ones are all worth doing on a clear day, and the sensible plan is to book Sky Garden for whichever slot you can get and walk into one of the others on the same trip.
Music Nights and Morning Yoga
From 6:30pm the Sky Pod Bar becomes a music venue, with live bands and DJ sets programmed through ALR Music. Dates and access times vary, pre-booking is strongly recommended, and standing access is over-18s only. It changes the room completely, so if you want the quiet version of Sky Garden, book earlier in the day.
On summer weekends there is a Stretch In The City yoga series at 8am on Saturdays and Sundays, subject to availability. Bring your own mat, it is 16 and over, and arrive fifteen minutes early for security. Booking runs through Design My Night rather than the Sky Garden site.
Sky Garden Restaurants and Bars
Unsplash Licenseorva studio/UnsplashSky Garden Restaurants and Bars
Two restaurants and two bars sit inside the garden, and a table booking at Darwin Brasserie or Fenchurch Restaurant replaces the free entry ticket outright. Larch is the one to understand before you book, because it is at street level opposite the entrance rather than up in the garden, and a reservation there does not guarantee you get up at all.
Sky Garden restaurants and barsInsider Tips for Visiting Sky Garden
Go at opening
Someone who works in the building recommends turning up as they open in the morning and not leaving it any later. The queue is shortest, the noise is lowest, and from about eleven the deck fills up.
Check the closure calendar first
If a whole week shows no availability, look at the official closure dates before you give up. Maintenance and private-event days never release tickets at all, and that is a different problem from selling out.
Private events close off sections
Parts of the garden get roped off for private hire, sometimes at sunset, and there is no warning on your ticket. If a particular terrace is the reason you are going, have a second plan.
Budget two hours, not one
An hour at the top plus up to an hour of queuing is the honest planning number. Reported waits run from nothing at all to two hours, and the variable is usually whether both lifts are working.
Dress for outside
The bars, the City Garden and the terraces are naturally ventilated, so the temperature up there is roughly whatever it is at street level. Blankets appear at some tables, but not everywhere.
Under-16s cannot come in late
Children under 16 are not admitted after 6pm on weekdays or after 9pm at weekends, and one adult can bring a maximum of three. Worth knowing before you book a family visit for the evening.
Nearby Attractions
Sky Garden sits in the middle of the City, so everything below is a walk rather than a journey.
- The Monument is two or three minutes downhill, and climbing its spiral staircase is the ground-level version of the same view.
- Leadenhall Market is about five minutes away, a Victorian covered market with painted ironwork and the prettiest lunch stop this close.
- 30 St Mary Axe is a six-minute walk and the obvious architectural companion, better known as the Gherkin.
- Tower of London is about nine minutes east, and the Crown Jewels and the White Tower are a half-day rather than an add-on.
- Tower Bridge is roughly twelve minutes on foot, and the high-level walkways put you back above the river.
- Millennium Bridge is a thirteen-minute walk west along the north bank, and the crossing to Bankside lines up with St Paul’s behind you.
- St Paul’s Cathedral is about fourteen minutes away, and the dome galleries are the paid climb to weigh against a free lift.
- Borough Market is around fourteen minutes over London Bridge, and lunch there is a better use of the walk than another view.
- The View from The Shard is fifteen minutes across the river, the paid comparison most people are weighing this against.
- Tate Modern is about twenty minutes over the Millennium Bridge, and its free viewing level is another one to add to the list.
Did You Know? (5 Interesting Facts!)
- The garden is free because the tower could not have been built otherwise. The Secretary of State granted permission in July 2007 partly because the building would be crowned by a space he called unique and extraordinary, and free public access had already been secured by agreement three months earlier, before a brick was laid.
- In September 2013, while the tower was still going up, its concave south face focused sunlight onto Eastcheap and warped the bodywork of a parked car. The press called it the Walkie Scorchie, and the permanent fix was a set of horizontal aluminium louvres submitted for planning in March 2014.
- The building won the 2015 Carbuncle Cup, an award for the worst UK building of the year. Its architect, Rafael Viñoly, had already said of it in 2014, “My name is on it but it’s not my building.”
- The visit used to be ninety minutes. The booking slots were cut to one hour, which is why guides still quoting ninety minutes are out of date.
- The Francis Golding Terrace is named after the townscape adviser who picked Viñoly as architect and supported the scheme at the 2007 public inquiry. He was killed in a cycling accident in November 2013.
History
2004
Rafael Viñoly designs 20 Fenchurch Street.
September 2006
The City of London Corporation resolves to grant planning permission.
April 2007
A Section 106 agreement is signed, legally requiring free public access during set hours.
July 2007
After the application is called in and a public inquiry held, the Secretary of State grants permission, citing the free public Sky Garden.
September 2013
Reflected sunlight damages a car on Eastcheap and the tower picks up the nickname Walkie Scorchie.
March 2014
Horizontal aluminium louvres are submitted for planning as the permanent fix.
Spring 2014
The tower completes.
January 2015
The restaurants open on the fifth, and the public garden and viewing terraces on the twelfth.
September 2015
The building wins the Carbuncle Cup.
FAQ
Is Sky Garden free?
Yes. Entry is free and there is no booking fee, but you need a timed ticket booked in advance rather than turning up on the day.
When are Sky Garden tickets released?
Free tickets are released every Monday morning, three weeks in advance, for the whole of that week. Bank holiday Mondays are excluded. Sky Garden does not publish an exact release time. Visitors consistently report 10am London time, and that is what visitors report rather than what the venue states.
Can I visit Sky Garden without booking?
Sometimes. Free walk-ins are accepted at staff discretion when there is space, and they are never guaranteed. Paid walk-in tickets are also sold at the door for early mornings and evening music nights. First thing in the morning is when walk-ins are most likely to work.
How long can you stay at Sky Garden?
One hour from the time you enter. The two-hour figure that appears on some paid packages is the length of the package, not the length of a free visit.
Is there a dress code at Sky Garden?
Not for daytime public entry. From 6pm it is smart casual in Darwin Brasserie and the bars, and Fenchurch Restaurant is stricter, with no sportswear, hoodies or gym trainers. Flip flops, baseball caps and vest tops are out in the restaurants.
Sky Garden or Horizon 22?
Horizon 22 at 22 Bishopsgate is also free and is higher, on level 58, and visitors report that walk-ups usually work. Sky Garden has the planting, the outdoor terrace, the full 360-degree wrap and somewhere to sit with a drink.
Where is the Sky Garden entrance?
A dedicated door on Philpot Lane, at the south-west corner of 20 Fenchurch Street. It is not the office lobby, which is where most people go wrong, and a lift takes you up to level 35.