Send Him to the Tower!
- Russell Shanks
- Nov 16, 2018
- 9 min read
The Tower of London - Part 1
The best advice I can give when entering the Tower of London is to not crack a joke at the security check. The end result may very well gain you access to the castle, but you may end up captive like many of the Tower’s more infamous residents. Fortunately for me, the day I decided to tell the armed police officer that I didn’t have any treats in my bag for the guard dogs, they saw it in good humour and had a chuckle. No ‘overnight stay’ in the Beauchamp Tower for me...
The Tower remains an active castle with Yeoman Warders and senior staff living on site. This means there is a not-unsubstantial chunk of the castle that is closed off to the public, maintained as private residences. With a long history and an even longer list of uses, the site is still technically owned by the Queen (as a Crown possession) though maintained and administered by Historic Royal Palaces. In line with tradition, there are still a lot of protocols and ceremonies after hours that are conducted on site which can be viewed for a fee (including the ‘Ceremony of the Keys’ which HRP Members can purchase tickets to view on occasion). Admission is in the realms of most major London tourist attractions (an online ticket for one adult with Gift Aid is £25) so membership to Historic Royal Palaces is a serious consideration if you are thinking about visiting any of their other 5 properties, or making multiple visits in the year. However, for the ‘once in a blue moon’ visit to the Tower, it is best to plan to spend the day here and get the most out of your admission fee.
I’ll make no bones about it. It’s expensive here. £25 admission, £10 more if you’re going to get a sandwich, coffee and snack from the café and it’s always going to be a wallet-busting trip into the gift shop (unless you don’t have kids and can avoid the shop as there is a limited selection of historical books inside). In fairness this is classic London-tourist-trap pricing, but it will be lingering in the back of your mind as you wander around. So again, make the most of your day. Spend a good few hours soaking up the atmosphere of this iconic venue and visit every exhibit. You’ll be knackered by the end but money well spent, right?
Do the Yeoman Warder’s Tour!
I have to admit, I haven’t yet gone on a full one myself, but the aspects of ‘the story’ I have heard in passing (and after reading The Ravenmaster by Christopher Schaife) make it sound brilliant. It’s known as ‘the story’ by the Yeoman Warders as it is a story, based on the history and legend of the Tower. If you want to learn about the actual history of the Tower than it is best to try and dig out a few history books. Even the interpretation at the Tower is limited to more introductory elements of the building’s history – which is fair enough once you understand that the vast majority of visitors are unlikely to be history graduates. Beginning on the bridge over the moat, after the Middle Tower (The public entrance) and before the Byward Tower, the tours are said to last an hour/hour & a half and are laced with humour, intrigue and myth. They are also very popular so be prepared to shuffle around in a big crowd for that time.
Heading down Water Lane between the two walls of castle defenses most people are drawn to head straight towards the tower green to get a view of the iconic White Tower. But be sure to keep your attention to your right as you may miss Traitor’s Gate and the entrance up on to the South Wall Walk.
Also in this place is the first of many exhibits into the functions of the tower – the Medieval Palace. St Thomas’ Tower was built as part of the tower’s expansion by Edward I. Edward was one of a few monarchs who used the tower as a royal residence, and often played its power symbolic to control and command over the mighty of the city of London.
The South Wall Walk is a good chance to get up onto the ramparts of the castle and get decent views of Tower Bridge and the view down the Thames towards central London. It was from up here in 2012 I was incredibly fortunate to see the Olympic Torch arrive by river boat to City Hall, delivered by David Beckham, on the final leg of its global tour before the Olympic Games!
Located below is Traitor’s Gate, the fabled river entrance for the damned into the Tower. Though originally built as part of Edward I’s renovations, the gate looms large in the macabre folklore of the Tower. Those who did enter the tower this way for imprisonment (and usually execution) would have had to pass the original London Bridge, adorned with the heads of those who had shared their fate.
Turn around and you’ll be faced with another symbol of this violent history.
The Bloody Tower.
So called due to its association with the murder-mystery of young Edward V and his brother Richard.They were the two princes allegedly killed by their uncle so that he could become King Richard III. You’ll have to go through into the inner ward to and back on yourself up the stairs to access the Bloody Tower – inside there’s a projected VT to tell you about the legend of the murder of the princes, but you’ll also find another VT (and garden!) associated with another one of the tower’s infamous residents – Sir Walter Raleigh. As a more accommodated guest of the tower (relatively speaking as he was a prisoner and later executed), he was allowed to keep a small garden in the style of the time and also a small gangway on the inner ward ramparts, now called Raleigh’s Walk. Perhaps appropriately enough the Bloody Tower was once known as the Garden Tower.
While the Bloody Tower arches over one of the entrances into the inner ward, it is connected to the Wakefield Tower, which continues the theme of crime and punishment exhibited.
Inside the base of the Wakefield Tower is a small exhibit on Torture at the Tower. And I mean small - mostly due to the lack of space in the well of the building. You’ll find a few torture devices, including the rack, and a bit of mood lighting – or lack of – to set the tone.
It’s claustrophobic, dingey and a bit horrible.
Almost perfect really.
In truth, or certainly according to the exhibit in the Beauchamp Tower (another crime and punishment exhibit), torture was not common practice to extract information from prisoners of the Tower, although it did occur to prisoners like John Gerard. (More on him shortly)
From the exit of the Wakefield Tower, and past the Polar Bear, continue down to the end Water Lane and you’ll find the Cradle Tower. Once you’ve worked out how to get in you can find out a bit more about John Gerard.
Essentially, Gerard was a Jesuit (Catholic) Priest who was imprisoned in 1597 as a danger to the state of Elizabeth I. Tortured under the orders of Robert Cecil, Elizabeth’s prime secretary and spy chief, it was hoped that Gerard would give away the names of catholic terrorist cells that had been trying to assassinate the Queen.
Instead, Gerard escaped.
Managing to get onto the roof of the Cradle Tower, Gerard’s accomplices got a rope up to him to get him down onto a boat and off to safety. Once he’d recovered his strength having been tortured, he wrote a memoir about his time in the Tower.
That story may seem familiar if you saw Kit Harrington’s period-drama 'Gunpowder'.
The Cradle Tower itself was actually built by Edward III as a private water gate for him and retinue to access and leave the Tower when it was still in use as a royal residence.
From the end of Water Lane at The Cradle Tower head up into the inner ward of the castle. On the right is the steps to the East Wall Walk, giving views of the A100. Although from here it’s a good time to pause, maybe step into the New Armouries Café or just admire THAT view of the White Tower for a moment:
One of the original features of the castle, the White Tower is the keep of the complex and is attributed with giving the Tower it name. Building started in 1078 by William the Conqueror and opened in 1080’s (Not as old as Chepstow’s Keep) it was once a home for the monarchs as a royal palace. As the last line of defense in the compound it had all the mod-cons any medieval ruler could wish for, from grand halls to an inbuilt chapel and many fireplaces. It is a stunning and iconic structure, a sky-scraper of its day.
One of the more striking things I came across on my most recent visit to the White Tower was almost the lack of items on display. Now I must address that I mean that in a relative sense – there are still multiple galleries inside with many artifacts. However, if you often visit museums you may have picked up on the trend of reducing the number of objects on display coupled with the development of new interactive and immersive experiences to enhance the visitor experience.
It is the mark of a museum of the 21st Century to adapt to both the demands of the visitors and to retain the function of a museum. Essentially, what is happening is that galleries are being reduced to focus attention on several key items in the collections, relevant to the gallery on display, while complimenting the physical items through the use of interactive media. Such things include displays children can touch and play with – inside the White Tower is a room dedicated to showing children a range of different types of weapons in the Royal Armoury, giving them a chance to notch a longbow, for example. A lot of the interactive displays allow visitors to see other key items, that may not be present in the gallery, and even get a better, more detailed appreciation of them from hi-definition photographs. But then you would wonder why should someone travel all that way to see a computer image instead an object of historic significance?
Yet, museum spaces and heritage places are becoming increasingly popular with a diverse background of visitors being attracted to enjoy more than just the cultural significance of the location. There are modern cafes, children’s play areas, community spaces and ever more specialised events to be hosted. As visitor numbers grow, it is a challenge to use what limited space at site has, and to use it effectively.
At The Tower of London the most popular areas have controlled and guided access. I.e. you are directed in one way, follow a set route and then exit through a separate way. The Jewel House is the most notable example. More often not you’ll see a large queue winding its way towards the back of the White Tower to go and see the Crown Jewels. Inside crowd management controls include a moving walkway (airport-style!) to allow visitors an even chance to get close to the jewels while keeping the crowds moving. In areas such as the Beauchamp Tower less control is in place, meaning you’re likely to get squashed if you’re in there after the end of the Yeoman Warder’s Tour.
Inside the White Tower the development of the displays has opened up the space inside to accommodate the volumes of visitors. If you happen to pop-in on a quiet day the amount of open (some may say empty) space is quite noticeable. At the time of my last visit there were still places you had to squeeze by people – no amount of updating and developing the stairwells will ever change that, and I’m sure Henry VIII will be smug to know that his armoured codpiece remains one of the most ogled at piece of armour in the realm – but for the most part there considerable blank spaces in many of the rooms, and no signage from Historic Royal Palaces to suggest that any new displays are imminent. What it does mean is that you can stand back and take stock of the rooms and building itself.
Thankfully, what was designed as a vulgar display of Norman power has been utilised and re-purposed so often throughout the past millennium that it is one of the most well-preserved castle structures in the country. Even on the insides the bare stone walls and wooden beams & boards (along with the acres of empty space) allow the imagination to easily envision royal hosts and banquets one can get from watching too many CGI-enhanced historic documentaries (I’m thinking of you Time Team graphics team). Many of the original Norman features are still in place, including fireplaces and garderobes. However the shop in the base of the tower is unlikely to be as old.
It is currently host to the oldest exhibition: The Line of Kings as part of its role as the royal armoury. You can see many suits of armour and weapons owned and gifted to the sovereign. The interpretation in this exhibit currently has a historiographical approach – you’re less likely to learn a great deal about the armour on display as you are going to about the history of people coming to see them. In effect you get a taste of 350-years-worth of tourist reviews of the Tower of London and the development of the interpretation - correcting inaccuracies the first exhibitors and antiquarians made of the collection.
Though interesting, I cannot help but think that it would be a better approach to make use of the empty spaces to elaborate on this historiographical approach, perhaps with some interactive way of reading archived reviews and comments like a historic visitor’s comment book, leaving room by the collection items to explain further about the armour on display. On the other hand, the limited reading material means that visitors don’t loiter long and the procession through the tower flows evenly.
Speaking of procession - The Tour will continue at the Jewel House in Part 2...
Top Tip: Join a Yeoman Warder's Tour to really get in the mood for your visit
Best Avoid: Unsuspecting humour at the bag search.
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