Blackpool Tower

Blackpool Tower stands in the seaside resort town of Blackpool on England's northwest coast, completed in 1894 to a design by the architects James Maxwell and Charles Tuke, its builders explicitly inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which had opened five years earlier. At roughly 158 meters it was, and remains, a landmark structure disproportionate to the modest resort town around it, built as a centerpiece attraction during the height of Blackpool's growth as a working-class seaside holiday destination for industrial northern England. At its base the tower complex houses the Tower Ballroom, an ornate Victorian dance hall featuring a large Wurlitzer theater organ that rises from beneath the stage, long a fixture of British popular entertainment and, in later decades, a filming location for the television program Strictly Come Dancing. The tower also contains an aquarium, a circus and an observation deck near its summit with a glass floor added in later renovations, together making the complex one of the most visited tourist attractions on the English coast.