Today is the beginning of our explorations of London. Since we have purchased our metro passes for the week we are entitled to use the 2 for 1 coupon to visit several attractions. We took the train back into town and the first issue we faced was trying to figure out if the ‘circle’ line went in one direction only. We are still not clear about that and we are very frustrated trying to find signage to support our questions. As a result we caught the only one we could find and it was going the ‘long’ way around the circle. We have also discovered that the metros are crowded and air circulation is poor so it felt very hot. However, on the positive, we do not feel the need to protect ourselves against pickpockets – although we are careful.
We decided today to head over to the Tower of London. Beside the Tower of London is the Tower Bridge which we will check out as well if we have the time. When we first saw the Tower of London we were really not that impressed. For some reason we expected to see at least one tall tower, but really it is more a castle. Ok, we were there to learn and here is some information I found about the Tower of London.
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078, and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new ruling elite. The castle was used as a prison since at least 1100, although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence.
As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. The first defensive wall was built by the Romans around 200 AD (about 150 years after the town was established) and incorporated within an pre-existing fort. In the Fourth Century the Romans strengthened the defence walls and added towers on the eastern side. There were several phases of expansion, mainly under Kings Richard the Lionheart, Henry III, and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site. During the expansions a Dutchman was hired to build a moat around the castle to add to the defences and used the tides of the Thames to fill and flush the moat twice a day. Today the moat area has been filled and is grassed in between the outer defence wall and the inner defence wall.
The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times and controlling it has been important to controlling the country. The Tower has served variously as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the home of the Royal Mint, a public records office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II, a procession would be led from the Tower to Westminster Abbey on the coronation of a monarch. In the absence of the monarch, the Constable of the Tower is in charge of the castle. This was a powerful and trusted position in the medieval period. In the late 15th century the castle was the prison of the Princes in the Tower. Under the Tudors, the Tower became used less as a royal residence, and despite attempts to refortify and repair the castle its defences lagged behind developments to deal with artillery.
The peak period of the castle's use as a prison was the 16th and 17th centuries, when many figures fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen, were held within its walls. This use has led to the phrase "sent to the Tower". Despite its enduring reputation as a place of torture and death, popularised by 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century writers, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the World Wars of the 20th century. Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period. (Although we see the Tower Hill we did not have time today to visit it.)
In the latter half of the 19th century, institutions such as the Royal Mint moved out of the castle to other locations, leaving many buildings empty. Anthony Salvin and John Taylor took the opportunity to restore the Tower to what was felt to be its medieval appearance, clearing out many of the vacant post-medieval structures. In the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison, and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage. After the wars, damage caused during the Blitz was repaired and the castle reopened to the public.
The Tower was oriented with its strongest and most impressive defences overlooking Saxon London. It would have visually dominated the surrounding area and stood out to traffic on the River Thames. The castle is made up of three "wards", or enclosures. The innermost ward contains the White Tower and is the earliest phase of the castle. Encircling it to the north, east, and west is the inner ward, built during the reign of Richard the Lionheart (1189–1199). Finally, there is the outer ward which encompasses the castle and was built under Edward I. Although there were several phases of expansion after William the Conqueror founded the Tower of London, the general layout has remained the same since Edward I completed his rebuild in 1285. The castle encloses an area of almost 12 acres (4.9 ha) with a further 6 acres (2.4 ha) around the Tower of London constituting the Tower Liberties – land under the direct influence of the castle and cleared for military reasons.
We joined a tour lead by one of the Yeoman Warders (also known as Beefeaters) who have been caretakers of the Tower of London for centuries. The oldest British military corps still in existence, it was created by Henry VII in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field. As a token of this venerability, the Yeomen still wear red and gold uniforms of Tudor style. In principle they are responsible for looking after any prisoners at the Tower and safeguarding the British crown jewels, but in practice they act as tour guides and are a tourist attraction in their own right, a point the Yeoman Warders acknowledge. Our guide was very knowledgeable and as we walked through the property he would often introduce an attraction and tell us a couple of stories. What a great way to be introduced to the Tower of London.
Some of the information we learned through the stories included the “Traitor’s Gate”, Bloody Tower, housing for the 3 Queens who had been imprisoned here in history, the torture tower, Henry III’s Watergate, seen the line of the Roman City Wall that still exists, and Chapel Royal of St Peter.
After we finished the tour we headed out to do our own self-guided tour. Our first stop was to tour the Waterloo Block where the Crown Jewels are stored. There is lots of history contained in the accumulation of the Crown Jewels. What is important to realize is that the Crown Jewels are not owned by the Monarchy, but instead are owned the citizens of Britain. There is a requirement that the Crown Jewels never leave England so on the occasion where a crown was needed for a Monarch for a visit to India, a new crown was created just for that trip and was only used then, not since.
We left the Waterloo Block headed out to enjoy the Medieval Palace and Wall Walk. We headed up to the top of the inner defence wall to walk through the towers where there was often exhibits set up. For the record, we were informed that there are twenty towers in the Tower of London, mostly on one of the 3 defence walls. We were surprised at the number of steps we had to take as we walked the wall. And inside any of the towers, if there were steps, they were narrow and spiral making one side easy to stop, and the other side of the step impossible.
One of the towers we visited was the Bloody Tower. The tower became known as the Bloody Tower in the mid-16th century because it was believed to be the place where the Princes in the Tower were murdered by their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester. There were lots to learn about the history of the Tower of London, as a Royal Residence and as a defence facility.
Our next exploration took us out to St. Thomas's Tower which was built by Edward I between 1275 and 1281 to perform a dual function, providing additional royal accomodation for the King and also creating a new Watergate at which the King could arrive from the river. (This is now known as Traitor's Gate.) Today we are given an exhibit of what living accommodations looked like in that era.
From here we continued to walk another section of the Wall Walk before heading over to the White Tower. The White Tower is a central tower, the old keep, at the Tower of London. It was started in 1078 by William the Conqueror who ordered the White Tower to be built inside the south-east angle of The City walls, adjacent to the River Thames. This was as much to protect the Normans from the people of the City of London as to protect London from outside invaders. William ordered the Tower to be built of Caen stone, which he had specially imported from France which explains the color. The tower was finished around 1087 by his sons and successors, William Rufus and Henry I. Today we walked through all 3 levels to study the museum of armaments including suits of armour.
Our next stop today was to go over to the tower where the methods of torture were on display. I am so glad we did not live in those days.
By the time we finished the tour of the Tower of London we had put in a full day. As a result we decided that it was better to head back to the hotel and leave the Tower Bridge for another day. On top of that it was threatening to rain. By the time we got back to the hotel it was after 4. Since breakfast here is served between 6:30 to 8:30 we are starting the days early. Today we were heading downtown by 8:30.
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