Review: SuperBloom at The Tower of London
Last weekend we paid a visit to London and stayed at the Hyatt Place London City East Hotel, just a short walk to the Tower of London.
We have visited The Tower of London before, but when we found out that they had filled the historic moat with meadow flowers to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee year we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit.
There is a free public viewing area to see the flowers, but you are still fairly high up and not able to fully appreciate the spectacle.
We decided there and then to book tickets to see it. You can choose between just visiting Superbloom, or a combined ticket to see the castle. If you know you are visiting, I would recommend you book your tickets a couple of days before as it gets quite busy, especially in the middle of the day.
You can also choose to purchase a photographic ticket, where the official photographers take shots of you as you explore.
As we were in town to see Ed Sheeran, I hadn’t brought my big camera, but the beautiful new naturalistic landscape is a photographers heavens as the colour palettes change as you walk along the winding path.
At the beginning of the pathway there is a large slide to ride. There was a fairly long queue, but it moved nice and quickly. Beware when travelling with young kids, most of them got to the top and changed their minds and it was the the adults who were having more fun. We certainly had a go too.
Next to the slide is a volunteer handing out leaflets about all the flowers they have planted, which were chosen to attract pollinators to the urban space and introduce a new biodiverse habitat for wildlife.
As you walk along the path, the sounds of the city begin to disappear, with calming music being played out of speakers along the way.
The flowers will be an evolving display with whites, blues, pinks, purples, reds and oranges throughout the height of summer and into September when it finishes.
You start in the west moat and wander through the north moat to the east moat. Each area has a different microclimate, and the planting in each offers a different atmosphere and colours with a backdrop of some of London’s historic buildings in the background.
The paths are edged with woven willow, some of which has hidden lighting within to provide a spectacular display at dusk.
We saw plenty of bees and butterflies as we wandered through, flying between the flowers.
The spectacular finale is the East Moat, with willow arches to wander through, covered with sweet peas and surrounded by sunflowers and poppies in the view of Tower Bridge.
As you leave the moat, there are some beautiful sculptures of dragonflies, bees and butterflies which dance in the breeze above your heads as you walk underneath.
Tickets to Superbloom at the Tower of London start from £12 for adults, from £6 for children and £9.60 for concessions. Family ticket options and combined entry tickets to the Tower of London are also available.
Have you visited the Superbloom display yet?
sharon smith
What a terrible waste of money. Would advise give it a miss. Having paid our train fare, plus money for tickets for the flowers was so disappointed. I appreciate the weather has been hot, but these flowers had not been watered at all, they were dead. I feel you are taking peoples money, for looking at a load of dead weeds. You should have cancelled the event. I think we are owed a refund.
Also the slide was out of acton. It was an absolute rip off.
Would appreciate some feed back.
Steve
Went yesterday 29th July, due to weather Superbloom is now a dried up area of grass with some flowers that are well beyond their best. Definately not worth the ticket price, do not expect to see anything like the photos advertising this.
Bob
Its passed its best. Save your money
Deb Tutton
Visited today, 7/8 as prebooked tickets weeks ago. Very disappointed all flowers finished & as others have said a waste of money. Probably lovely 2 months ago, still neednt pay though as can be viewed from outside
Karin Goddard
We were very annoyed with our visit to Superbloom on August 8th, we were so looking forward to the beautiful wild flowers, instead all we saw was dead flowers all gone to seed,,at least 90% of the moat has gone to seed and there was barely any colour at all, I would have thought that if Superbloom had planted these, they would have at least watered with sprinklers in the evening to prolong the flowers life, but we searched throughout the planting area and there were no signs of these or hosepipes, I know we are now on water shortages , but if venues like these sell tickets for an event , I would have thought they could use sprinklers for a while to keep them alive. This was money not well spent, we don’t even live in London, so came down especially for it.
Brenda
We were booked to visit on the 13th august, but cancelled due to extensive heat and the fact there were virtually no flowers to see other than dead and dying ones.
My daughter paid extra in case of cancellation but was refused compensation on the fact London was not in a red zone but amber weather warning so not too hot.
The whole thing should have been cancelled, instead there are many disappointed visitors, who won’t go again.
Queenie
totally agree with all of the above-we visited today (25/8/22). Again , I know we ve had really dry weather /no rain but what a let down! We had booked a few months ago as a day trip coach tour so our entrance was included in the cost of total ticket to tower/coach -but felt for anyone who paid £10 just to come in and see the moat/superbloom. Could hear a mother and daughter walking around who could nt believe they’d just paid £10 each for what they were seeing. The problem is-nothing was ever going to or will compare with the poppy exhibition but that was always going to be a hard act to follow. What we saw today was nothing like the photos selling the coach trip when we booked it a few months ago. Do not pay to come down to see this specially and pay-you will be very cross!. Having said that, I think its a good idea that they re going to leave it permanently for wildlife-especially in London-but to pay to go and see it-no!-should be included as part of entrance ticket to TOL in the same way that crown jewels are.