Nine Elms is London's newest neighbourhood and it shows — the restaurants and amenities are still arriving, the construction cranes still frame the skyline. But the riverside walk is finished, and the combination of Battersea Power Station's restored turbine halls with the newly opened public realm along the water makes this worth doing now rather than later.
The power station itself is the draw: the Art Deco brick chimneys and the turbine halls inside, which were used as sets for Pink Floyd's Animals cover and are now shopping and restaurant space without having lost their industrial grandeur. The chimney lift to the roof is free, and the view from 50 metres is the best of the Thames between Waterloo and Chelsea.
