Millennium countdown

(Photograph) - Millennium countdown: a detail of 'London from the South Bank: a painting to celebrate the millennium', is being unveiled at South Bank University tonight.

Artist Miles Peter Richmond first painted London from the roof of one of the university's buildings as a student at the then Borough Polytechnic in 1946. He has reworked it into a 30-foot version. Mr Richmond has placed South Bank at the hub from which radiate the roads leading to the seven bridges that form the principal north-south links across the River Thames -- Lambeth, Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark, London and Tower. He said: 'Standing on the roof of South Bank's tower, the sense of London radiating like a fan is forceful.' The university wanted to celebrate both the millennium and the teaching of the Borough Group under David Bomberg