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Report - - Lloyds of London - March 2012 | High Stuff | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Lloyds of London - March 2012

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OliverT

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
I had been looking at this building for a while; looking at various ways of possibly accessing the roof. Some ideas worse than others. I had one idea that I’d been looking at for a while, and after checking Google maps, everything seemed to be in place.
After turning up for a recce however, I noticed things had changed: the building was obviously under-going refurbishment, and an easy route up had been created for the workers.
Downside, this was hot. Cameras covering street level, and motion sensors protecting the first few levels of the building. I had looked at ways up, some easier than others, but either way, there was a way up.

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So, in the company of Dicky, AndrewB and Keitei we set out with the intention of cracking this one, provided the other climb of the night, Shard, failed. While checking it out, I pointed at the site and compared Lloyds to it, just minus the fence.

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This wasn't straight forward, with PIR's placed in positions that made the first levels impassable. Dicky had come up with a plan to get past them, which worked for them, but not for me. After wedging myself between some pipes ready to pull myself up onto another scaffold platform, I looked down to see a sheer drop to the cold hard ground below. I pussied out at this point, and returned to the previous platform, where I devised my own plan to get up :gay. This involved precariously climbing up the outside. Had I moved an inch out of place, the whole trip would have been over for us all.

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After the PIR's were conquered, it was hardly plain sailing. In the end, we had to use three separate lots of scaffolding; crawling along pipes and the roofs of walkways, contending with sheer drops the whole time, to get to various different points.

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But once up, it was definitely all worth it. This is hands down the best rooftop I've ever stood on. Miniature cranes, spiral staircases; big pipes; ladders, gantrys; plus an amazing view to boot. What more could you want?

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Looking down into the building, to the right of the main desk stands the Lutine Bell:
In the great Underwriting Room of Lloyd's stands the Lutine Bell, which was struck when the fate of a ship “overdue” at its destination port became known. If the ship was safe, the bell would be rung twice; if it had sunk, the bell would be rung once. (This had the practical purpose of immediately stopping the sale or purchase of “overdue” reinsurance on that vessel.) Now it is only rung for ceremonial purposes, such as the visit of a distinguished guest (two rings), or for the annual Remembrance Day service and anniversaries of major world events (one ring).

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I've got pretty lazy with writing reports lately, but I've had the pleasure of standing on a fair few roofs already this year, so expect to see a write up out of public soon :thumb. I put this in public because the opportunity to top it is now gone. I'm really surprised not more people had done this... Thanks for looking! ;)

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