Westminster or Waterloo

Flights are available from 10am to 8pm (9pm June to September). Tickets can be bought on the day, but advance booking is advised especially at weekends and holidays. Flights prices £15.50 for adults, concessions £12, children £7.75 The Eye offer many packages including champagne flights and private capsules.

0870 5000 600

The Millennium Wheel or London Eye, was built to celebrate the millennium in London. At the time of building, it was the largest observation wheel in the world, but larger ones have now been built in China and Singapore.

The wheel carries 32 sealed and air-conditioned passenger capsules attached to its external circumference, each carrying 25 people and one revolution takes about 30 minutes.

The architects of the London Eye are husband and wife team David Marks and Julia Barfield. Winners of a competition for ideas to mark the Millennium, their design was considered to be the most imaginative. David and Julia wanted to present not just a monument, but something celebratory, that people could participate in and enjoy. David researched and developed the idea for a giant observation wheel and Julia found the ideal site by drawing a circle round London and finding the dead centre, Jubilee Gardens on the South Bank of the Thames.

The London Eye was built in The Netherlands by the company Hollandia. The wheel was constructed in sections which were floated up the Thames on barges and assembled lying flat on pontoons. Once the wheel was complete it was raised into an upright position by cranes, being lifted at 2 degrees an hour.

When you fly on the London Eye, well-known landmarks and buildings of central London are spread out in a great panorama before you.

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