The Tower Of London Tourist Information
One of London’s two World Heritage Sites, the Tower of London has predominate the south-eastern corner of the City of London since 1078 when William the Conqueror laid the first stone of the White Tower to fillin the earth and timber castle he’d already built on the site.
William 11 through his father’s be on the White Tower and between 1190 and 1285 two townwall with towers and a moat were built around it. A riverside wharf was later added and since then the medieval defences have scarce been altered.
Until the reign of Henry, the kings had been content to live within the White Tower itself but as well as strengthening the Tower’s defences, Henry had a castle constructed between the White Tower and the river. He also started the Royal Menagerie, London’s first menagerie, after King Louis presented him with an elephant in 1255.
In the early Middle Ages. the Tower acted not just as a royal place but also as a vault. a mint, an armsdepot and a prison. After Henry VIII moved to Whitehall Palace in 1529, the Tower’s role as a prison became progressively important, with Sir Thomas More, queens Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, Archbishop Cranmer, Lady Jane Grey, Princess later Queen, Elizabeth and Sir Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, just some of the most famous Tudor prisoners.
After the monarchy was restored in 1660, a large garrison was stationed in the Tower of London and the armsdepot was expanded. For the first time the public was admitted to see the coronation regalia and the armoury.
When the Duke of Wellington became Constable of the Tower in 1826 he was anxious that revolution might spread across the Channel from France and so set about reinforcing the Tower’s military strength. The Royal Menagerie was closed and the public record moved out. A new barracks quickly fillind the Grand Storehouse when it burnt down in 1841.
Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, saw things very differently and oversaw the razing of some of the newer buildings and the outweigh or reconstruction of the medieval towers. From then on the Tower’s gruesome and sometimes ferocious history became little more than a tourist attraction although prisoners were still everynowandthen housed here right up to WWII, most notably Rudolf Hess in 1941.
These days the Tower of London is visited by more than two million people a year, with impressive crush even on cold winter afternoons. With hour-long queues to see the Crown Jewels in summer, you’ll do yourself a givepreferenceto if you visit out of season.
