There are few pieces of building technology that are more tested and more scrutinised as passenger lifts, and one of the most important ways of determining their safety can be found in list testing towers.

Ever since Elisha Otis used an axe and his own body to showcase the power of the safety brake, lift testing has been critical and often dramatic, requiring buildings almost as huge and spectacular in scope as the skyscrapers they are set to be installed in.

The very first lift testing tower was constructed by Mr Otis’ eponymous company 17 years after he died in his hometown of Yonkers, New York. However, the tower that is most fascinating and important for British lifts is based in Northampton.

The National Lift Tower was originally completed in 1980 under the name of the Express Lift Tower, designed by Maurice Walton of the architecture firm Stimpson Walton Bond, becoming one of only two in Europe and the only one in the UK.

It has six different lift shafts, but one of them was exclusively used by the British Standards Institution for testing lift safety components. The vast majority of lifts built in Britain will have had at least one component tested in Northampton because of this.

However, its primary use as a way to test full lift products for the Express Lift Company was short-lived, as this part of the General Electric Company was bought by Otis, who opted to use their own lift towers in the United States instead.

Even after just 17 years though, the Lift Tower had become a landmark of Northampton, nicknamed the “Northampton lighthouse” by the late Terry Wogan. 

Because of this, it became in 1997 the country’s youngest listed building, and had one of the shortest durations between construction and listed status. It has since become  used not only for lift component testing but drainage testing and even abseiling.