The OXO Tower and the South Bank Skyline

Published 28 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

The OXO Tower is a brick tower on the south bank of the Thames between Blackfriars and Waterloo bridges, built in the late 1920s with windows cut in the shapes O, X and O so that a meat-extract company could advertise on the skyline without a sign. The ground floors are free to walk into and hold about thirty designer-makers' studios and a gallery. The eighth floor is a restaurant, and that is the part to be careful about.

The building's proper name when it was rebuilt was Stamford Wharf, and at the time it was London's second tallest commercial building. Coin Street Community Builders, the co-operative that owns it, is straightforward about how the lettering happened: the Liebig Extract of Meat Company bought the site in the late 1920s, and its architect Albert Moore worked the product's own design into the tower as windows, to get around a ban on advertising on the skyline. It worked, and it is still working a century later.

Our guide to the South Bank covers the riverside as a whole. This page is about this building, what is actually open inside it, and where on this stretch of river to stand for the view - including an honest answer about the top floor.

Advertising by window: how the lettering got there

The site was a power station around 1900, built to supply electricity to the Post Office. In the late 1920s the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, part of the Vestey Group, bought it, demolished much of it and extended the riverside frontage. Liebig made the OXO beef stock cube.

Skyline advertising was banned, so the company did not put up a sign. It put up a tower, and the tower's windows are a circle, a cross and a circle on each of its four faces. Seen from across the river the building spells its own product in daylight and, when the windows are lit, at night. It is the most elegant piece of evasion on the London riverside, and it is the single thing to point out to anyone standing beside you.

The building then declined. By the early 1970s it was derelict, and Coin Street's own history notes that by the time the co-operative took it over the only activity on site involved two barges used as a floating heliport - which the co-operative's first act was to close. The riverside walkway opened in 1988, the £20m refurbishment by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands followed, and the Wharf opened to the public in 1996. It won a building-of-the-year award for urban regeneration in 1997.

The free viewing floor: what we can and cannot confirm

This needs saying plainly, because the OXO Tower has a long-standing reputation as a free viewpoint. We could not confirm that a free public viewing area on the top floor is currently open. The eighth floor is occupied by Oxo Tower Restaurant, Bar & Brasserie, which the Food Standards Agency lists at that address with a hygiene rating of 5 from an inspection in April 2025. Coin Street, the landlord, describes the building's public offer as the studios, the shops, the gallery and a restaurant, and says nothing about a viewing gallery. The restaurant operator's own pages describe a restaurant, a brasserie and a bar and nothing else.

So do not travel across London expecting to ride a lift to a free balcony. If you are already on the riverside, the lift is there and it costs nothing to try; if the view matters more than the building, use one of the free alternatives below, all of which are confirmed.

What is genuinely free inside

Quite a lot, and it is the reason to go in. The ground, first and second floors hold over thirty retail design studios: jewellers, ceramicists, milliners, shoemakers, lighting and furniture designers and textile artists, most of them making on the premises. You can walk the arcades and look through the windows without buying anything, and the people inside are generally happy to talk about what they are doing, which is not true of a shop on Oxford Street.

On the ground floor, Oxo Gallery runs a changing programme of exhibitions and design shows, free to enter. Coin Street publishes a directory of the tenants but not a single set of opening hours, so hours vary from studio to studio; the middle of the day is the safe bet, and the covered arcades and the riverside walkway are open whenever you pass. If you are hunting for something to take home that is not a fridge magnet, this is the best place on the South Bank - see our guide to London souvenirs worth buying.

Where to stand for the skyline, and when

The view from this stretch is the one on the postcards: St Paul's dome upstream-left, the City towers behind it, and the river bending away east. Four free places to take it in, in the order you meet them walking east.

Tate Modern is the one to plan around: the gallery is free and its Level 10 viewing floor is free with it, open until 6pm Sunday to Thursday and 9pm on Friday and Saturday. That last detail is the answer to sunset in winter, when everything else on this list is dark by five. Our guide to the best free viewpoints in London ranks the city-wide options, and London's viewing platforms compared sets the paid ones against each other.

For a paid alternative that is nearly free, Sky Garden in the City costs nothing but must be booked, and there is a run of paid roof terraces in our guide to rooftop bars in London.

The light, and the hour that matters

This is a north-facing riverside, which is the useful fact nobody mentions. Standing at the OXO Tower you are looking north across the water, so the buildings opposite are lit from behind in the middle of the day and lit from the side in the early morning and the late afternoon. The dome of St Paul's takes low western light best, which means the hour before sunset from this bank and the hour after sunrise from the opposite one.

After dark the OXO lettering is lit and the tower becomes the landmark in the other direction, seen from the Embankment. That is worth combining with the walk described in our guide to Cleopatra's Needle and the Victoria Embankment on the north bank, which faces this way.

A thirty-minute walk that includes everything

1. Start at Blackfriars station, which has exits on both banks. Take the south exit and turn right along the river.
2. OXO Tower Wharf in four minutes. Go through the arcade, not past it.
3. Bernie Spain Gardens immediately behind, for the framed view of the tower and somewhere to sit.
4. Gabriel's Wharf a minute further west, a cluster of small shops and cafés run by the same co-operative.
5. Back east under Blackfriars Bridge to Tate Modern in about eight minutes, for the Level 10 view.

Going further in either direction, our guides to the bridges of London and the Thames Path continue the walk, and the Southbank Centre is ten minutes west. Southwark and Bankside covers what lies inland. If you are fitting this into a short trip, it appears in our two days in London itinerary as part of the Saturday afternoon.

Arriving by river, and in September

Blackfriars Pier is a few minutes east of the Wharf and is served by the river bus; fares sit outside the daily travel cap, so check our guide to the river bus before you decide it is the cheap option. Arriving by boat does give you the OXO lettering from the water, which is how it was meant to be seen.

In September the river itself becomes the event: Totally Thames puts installations, boats and walks along this stretch through the month, and the Wharf's courtyard is often used for it.

Frequently asked questions

Can you go up the OXO Tower for free?

We could not confirm it. The eighth floor is a restaurant, bar and brasserie, and neither the building's owner nor the operator advertises a free public viewing area there in September 2026. The lift is free to use and you may find you can look out, but do not make a journey for it. Tate Modern's Level 10 is a confirmed free viewpoint eight minutes' walk away.

Why does the OXO Tower have OXO written on it?

Because advertising on the skyline was banned when the tower was built in the late 1920s. The Liebig Extract of Meat Company, which made OXO stock cubes, had its architect design the tower's windows in the shapes of a circle, a cross and a circle, so the building spelled the product without carrying a sign.

Is OXO Tower Wharf free to go into?

Yes. The arcades, the courtyard, the riverside walkway, the ground-floor gallery and the design studios on the lower three floors are all free. You are walking into working studios rather than a museum, so hours vary and some will be shut.

What is the nearest station to the OXO Tower?

Blackfriars, about six minutes' walk, which has exits on both sides of the river and serves the District and Circle lines and Thameslink. Waterloo is about ten minutes and Southwark on the Jubilee line about twelve.

Where is the best free view of St Paul's from the South Bank?

From the riverside walkway in front of OXO Tower Wharf for the dome across the water, from Blackfriars Bridge for the widest sweep in both directions, and from Level 10 at Tate Modern for the highest. All three cost nothing, and Tate Modern is the only one that is indoors and open into the evening on Fridays and Saturdays.

Sources

• Coin Street Community Builders - Oxo Tower Wharf (checked September 2026)
• Coin Street Community Builders - Oxo Tower Wharf development and history (checked September 2026)
• Coin Street Community Builders - Shop, eat, drink at Oxo Tower Wharf (tenant directory) (checked September 2026)
• Tate - Visiting Tate Modern (opening hours and free entry) (checked September 2026)
• Food Standards Agency - food hygiene rating register (Oxo Tower Restaurant, Bar & Brasserie, Eighth Floor, rated 5 on 8 April 2025) (checked September 2026)