Richmond Park, the Natural History Museum and its bedfellow the Science Museum, and the Columbia Road Flower Market are all among my family’s favourite places in London where a trip out needn’t cost a fortune.

We added another to the list this weekend: The Monument to the Great Fire of London in the City at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street. The haul up the 311 steps makes for hard work but the panoramic views of landmarks such as the BT Tower, the Gherkin, the London Eye and Tower Bridge are breathtaking.

Only the views from the top of the dome at the nearby St Paul’s Cathedral come close but that’ll cost you an admission fee of £12.50 for adults and £4.50 for children – compared to £3 and £1 respectively to climb the Monument.

The simple Doric column is topped by a flaming urn of copper symbolising the Great Fire. It is 202 ft high which by design is exactly the distance from the base of the Monument to where Great Fire of London started on Pudding Lane in 1666.

The Monument has given its name to the nearby tube station (Central, Circle, District, Northern, Waterloo and City and Docklands Light Railway) and was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke and built in 1671. It reopened almost 12 months ago after a £4.5 million refurbishment.