Shot Tower, Lambeth

The Shot Tower once dominated this stretch of the South Bank, standing as a brick industrial giant where you now find the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Built in eighteen twenty-six, its design was surprisingly elegant for a factory, featuring walls that measured three feet thick at the base and tapered as they climbed one hundred and sixty-three feet toward the sky. Its primary purpose was the manufacturing of lead shot for hunting, a process that relied on gravity. Workers would haul molten lead to the top gallery, pour it through sieves, and let it fall the full height of the shaft. By the time the droplets hit a cold bucket of water at the bottom, they had hardened into perfectly spherical pellets.