Love locks spring up across London in time for Valentine's Day

Is showing your appreciation for your other half via a padlock the best way to do it?

This is one of those moments when you know Shoreditch is just too cool.

Shunning the normal Valentine’s gestures of flowers, chocolates or even just a Marks and Spencer Dine In for £20 the hipsters have started their own Love Fence.

On the edge of a disused concrete yard currently being used as a lorry park is a fence which is now swathed in 50 Love Locks.

The idea comes from the St Petersburg Bridge of Kisses, where, according to legend, couples who kiss on the bridge will enjoy true love and happiness. They must then seal their love with a padlock attached to the railings. So many have been hung that specially commissioned trees have had to made to keep up with demand for space.

Love Locks really caught on following the success of I Want You, by Federico Moccia, where he describes a couple attaching a lock to Milvian Bridge in Rome. Although the vociferous way people have embraced the idea has started to anger Italian authorities. Following the removal of 5,000 padlocks from Ponte Vecchio in Florence the Mayor introduced a €43 fine for anyone caught in the act.

Whether the gritty East London setting is quite as romantic as Paris, Rome or St Petersburg is debateable, but perhaps that is part of its charm.

Padlocks have began to appear on other London bridges, there are several on the Millennium Bridge over the Thames, linking St Paul’s Cathedral and Tate Modern (right by Marie Claire towers!). So many in fact, that the City of London Corporation, who maintain the bridge, have asked an engineer to assess the possible structural implications.

A word of warning though, should you wish to lock your heart to another’s for eternity on a London bridge, it may be removed during construction work and thrown away. Maybe a card is just easier!