At 34 storeys and 148m high, Guy’s Tower was the tallest hospital building in the world when it was first built. Though the tower wasn’t opened until 1974, the hospital had asked the Ministry of Health to approve and fund the development as early as the 1950s.

The tower would both expand the hospital premises and include an urgently needed new boiler. With the Ministry refusing to commit to the project, the Hospital’s Endowment Committee began funding it themselves using the hospital’s ‘endowment’ (as a teaching hospital, Guy’s had retained its endowment of donated funds after it joined the NHS).

The committee provided more than £250,000 to the project.