East of Desolation Infrastructure, decay, urban exploration and discovery…

Night At The Museum – Rooftopping The British Museum

In 2004, a security review took place at several of London's top museums and galleries.  The review (carried out without the museums and galleries knowledge) found that access to, removal of, and exit with priceless artefacts was, in theory at least, not difficult, and that there were serious holes and weaknesses in security and protocol.

Fast-forward 6½ years, and I am in the pub with friends, and my phone rings;  It's Patch.  I listen with disdain as he explains to me that he thinks we can top out the British Museum.  I'm used to occasional madcap schemes from Patch, some of which pay off, some of which don't...  It seemed foolish at the time, but I agreed to join Patch and Alex in London on the Friday night to check out his idea.

As we rounded the final corner, it became obvious what he had in mind.  On Montague Place, there is a building site, part of the museum is being rebuilt.  There is scaffold up one side of the building.  The perfect route onto the roof.

Returning to the car, we racked our climbing gear up, harnesses on, scaffold hooks at the ready, rucksacks stuffed with rope, descenders, ascenders and camera gear, we climbed the hoarding and navigated around the first of what turned out to be many, many alarms.

Straight off the scaffold, I pulled out my camera, and started shooting.  ISO pushed up to 12800, quick and dirty handhelds were the name of the game.  we had no idea if we had missed an alarm, or if we were still undetected.  With urgency, we pushed on.  Moving away from the edge of the building, we nearly made our first mistake.  Narrowly avoiding tripping a sensor, we altered course and traversed a different part of the roof.  we had to move away, in order that we could move nearer undetected.

Having navigated the sensor, we now had a second issue to overcome.  The wing of the museum we had climbed onto, was some 10 to 12 metres taller than the main building that we were aiming for.  A quick climb around enabled us to ascertain that there were no ladders, and no stairs down.  Fortunately, we had planned for this eventuality.  40-odd metres of rope was uncoiled from a bag, and an abseil was rigged.  we silently descended onto the lower roof.

As I pulled the rope down after us, we took stock of the situation; It seemed to be relatively plain sailing from this point.  There were no sensors in sight.  It was all on one level to the glass atrium roof.  We had plenty of time.  And most importantly, there were no helicopters hovering above us!

We paused for a group shot.  Standing perfectly still, the three of us in silence.  As the shutter closed, we all breathed, and one by one, laughed.  The sheer elation one feels when you have conquered the seemingly unconqureable is almost indescribable.

We pushed on.  Every alcove, every corner and at every change of direction we stopped, observed, looked and tried to spot sensors, cameras, anything that could impede our progress.  To my shock, there was nothing.  The only explanation I can find for this, is that nobody expected us to get that far into the museum roof.  An open window served to confirm this... We were able to look down into, and potentially climb into one of the halls containing Egyptian artefacts.  Needless to say, we didn't - Doing so would mean almost certain capture and arrest.  We made do with photographs, cameras held through the windows...

We pressed on.  Artefacts, no matter how fascinating, historically important or valuable were not our aim for the evening.  A short ladder, some stairs and we were there.  The famous glass roof over the Great Court.  Designed by Lord Foster, and opened in 2000, we were walking on top of it!

It was swiftly getting light.  The time was well gone 3:00am.  We had to get down.  Priority became leaving, before the sun came up, before the streets got busy, and before the parking nazi's put a ticket or worse on my car!  We swiftly climbed to the top of the dome, where sadly, I didn't take any photographs worth posting.  Rushing down, we skirted around the glass, to enable us to leave via the same building site we entered by;  We planned to abseil off the building into a different area of the site.  This is where we started to make mistakes.  Tired and rushing, at some point in the 90 minutes between leaving the glass atrium, and finishing the abseil, we triggered a sensor.  Sadly, we were apprehended by the Museum security who called the police straight away.  After a search and a dressing down from some of the most reasonable, calm and composed police I have ever encountered, we were allowed to leave.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the museum security guards, who were intent on "seizing our cameras" or having us arrested for "...anything.  In my day, they would have been locked up straight away" and the classic, yet sad "Arrest them for trespass", "We want to press trespass charges".  It's not unusual to see security guards with such a poor grasp of the law, there really is no excuse.

As a final note, I would like to remind the reader, that all of the images in this post are copyright.  My activities on the night that this trip took place were not breaking the law, and that none of the images on this page or website may be used without the express permission of the owner of the copyright.  Unless otherwise specified, that person is me, the author.

If you wish to use any of the images for any reason, be it commercial or personal, please contact me for permission by e-mailing unknown[at]eofd.co.uk or using the images for sale page.