Update added May 2017: these are now back! I think it’s now a sunrise yoga and buffet breakfast style thing that you can book here. Please note my review below was for a basic yoga class in the winter in the same space, back in 2015!

THE BASICS: Yoga at 6.30am at the top of the Walkie Talkie (20 Fenchurch Street) on weekdays, and at 9am on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s a tenner. (See above for more deets on this).

THE BITCHES: Carly, Beth, Freya and Sorcha

THE CLASS: I’m not gonna lie, arriving at the Sky Garden at 6.28am made me wonder if I had actually been to bed at all the previous night. I am one of life’s sleepers. I can nap anywhere. So dragging myself to a yoga class when it was still pitch black (like, not even dawn, we’re talking LITERAL night) must have meant this was something pretty special.

35 floors in a lift and an extra flight of stairs for good measure confirmed my suspicions. Along with maybe 60 other people, we were in the cavernous, glass fronted Sky Garden at the top of the Walkie Talkie (20 Fenchurch Street). London twinkled in front of us, and the Gerkin and The Cheese Grater towered ahead.

Ok, this was worth getting up for. We lay down our mats and didn’t immediately take off our outside clothes because as you can imagine, a giant glass room in the sky at 6.30am isn’t exactly cosy. In fact, my fellow HB Beth stayed in her coat for the first few vinyasas which was the cutest sight to see on a freezing morning. But as the music started and we got warm, the layers started to peel off of the yogis around us, and I even worked up a bit of a sweaty brow!

The teaching itself? To be honest, this is a destination yoga class first and foremost, and so even if the class was poor, the view and the experience would make up for it in my opinion. However, the teaching was top notch and just how I like my yoga. Fast, strong and just the right thing to wake you up in the morning and get that fire roaring in your belly.

Teachers do differ but having done several classes there now, I’ve learned to expect to stay moving strongly for most for the 60 min class.

THE VERDICT: People are soaring on their mats while they watch the dawn creep over London. A clear day is spectacular because you get to see the colours of the sky turn orange, pink and red which as you can imagine positively affects your sun salutatuons by approximately 1,000,000%. But an overcast morning isn’t too shoddy either- I don’t think anything (especially anything that gets me up at 5.15am) has managed to make me head to work calm as fluffy little cloud.

THE EXTRAS: A couple of things to know- the noise of the cafe firing up for the day travels up to the yoga space (which you woudl expect in a vast glass building!) so be prepared for that. It’s no biggie though really- you’re so high on life affirming sun salutations that they just kind of melt away.

Oh, and it can get COLD. Like, seriously chilly. So take socks for savasana, and a jumper to start before you get warm.

BRING A MAT!