The Oxo Tower Wharf

The Oxo Tower Wharf in London is a former power station famous for its 1920s tower windows designed in the shape of letters to bypass a skyline advertising ban. Architect Albert Moore created the O, X, O windows for the Liebig Extract of Meat Company. In 1984, non-profit Coin Street Community Builders acquired the site, leading to a Β£20 million refurbishment that added 78 affordable flats, designer studios, and an eighth-floor restaurant.

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Oxo Tower Wharf, Bargehouse Street, London SE1 9PH

How did the Oxo Tower Wharf bypass London's ban on skyline advertising?

Look up at that tower. See those geometric shapes near the top... two circles and a cross, stacked vertically on each face? That's not just decoration. That is one of London's Cleverest pieces of hidden advertising... and it's been hiding in plain sight for nearly a hundred years.

This building started life as a power station, built at the end of the nineteenth century to supply electricity to the Royal Mail post office. A humble beginning. But the story gets interesting in the nineteen twenties, when the Liebig Extract of Meat Company acquired the building, manufacturers of Oxo beef stock cubes, for conversion into a cold store.

Now, Liebig had ambitions. They wanted to include a tower featuring illuminated signs advertising the name of their product. But there was a problem... permission to display illuminated signs was denied, thanks to a ban on skyline advertising along the South Bank.

So what did they do? They hired their company architect, Albert Moore, who came up with a Brilliant loophole. Moore designed windows shaped like the letters O, X, O... a simple yet striking move that cleverly sidestepped the advertising ban. The tower was built with four sets of three vertically aligned windows, each of which... "coincidentally"... happened to be in the shapes of a circle, a cross, and a circle. It wasn't signage. It was architecture. And the authorities couldn't do a thing about it.

At that time, the building was named Stamford Wharf and was London's second highest commercial building.

But the history of this ground goes back much, Much further. Bargehouse Street commemorates the old Barge House and stairs where the King's State barge was housed from Henry the Seventh to Charles the First. That's right... the very street you're standing on was once where English monarchs kept their royal barges! Around fifteen thirty, this site held the dwellings of the Royal Barge Master and sheds for the State Barges. Back then, the Thames was London's main highway, and kings travelled by water between their palaces.

By the early nineteen seventies, the building was derelict. There were multiple proposals to demolish the art deco structure, but locals fought back. Thanks to their efforts, the tower and the land around it were sold in nineteen eighty four to a non-profit group called Coin Street Community Builders. The twenty million pound refurbishment was designed by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, and today this building houses seventy eight affordable flats, designer studios, galleries... and up on the eighth floor, Harvey Nichols' very first restaurant.

From royal barge house... to power station... to meat warehouse... to one of the South Bank's most vibrant creative hubs. And through it all, those three cheeky letters have been glowing over the Thames... the longest running free advert in London.

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