Here are two faces of the White Tower which should be called the "Brown Cube." (Its name comes from the original whitewashing.) The right view better shows the only round tower which contains the circular (and once only) stairway in the building.
The Tower contains 18 acres centered on its first building, the White Tower, William the Conqueror's Keep:
|
Here are two faces of the White Tower which should be called the "Brown Cube." (Its name comes from the original whitewashing.) The right view better shows the only round tower which contains the circular (and once only) stairway in the building. |
|
"La Blanche Tour" was constructed of limestone taken from Caen in Normandy and, like most Norman keeps, was square. The windows were updated by Sir Christopher Wren who apparently did home remodeling when he wasn't designing classical cathedrals. (Keeps constructed later were round as rounded walls better resist the assaults of battering rams). The White Tower was the first building, and in a castle, the keep would be the defense of last resort. If the enemy broached the walls, the remaining garrison would retreat to the keep where they would have stores of food and a well. Early keeps such as this one usually contained the apartments of the king and his retinue. We'll study the inside of the White Tower later.
Below is a picture of the tower taken from the nearby Tower Bridge. The river entrance, called Traitor's Gate (since here entered prisoners into the fort's bosom) is at lower left. The White Tower is a "squarish" building whose sides are not quite the same length (count the windows) with only one corner a true right angle. Nor are its 90-foot towers identical.
 |
Below is a panorama (excuse the jerky cut-and-paste) view of the grounds looking west from White Tower towards the Thames. At left are Tudor-era apartments where the Beefeater guides and their families live (and will proudly point out their windows while conducting tours). Probably built for Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII in 1530, these were among the very few wood buildings to survive the great London fire of 1666 (thanks to being surrounded by stone walls). Anne had over 250 attendants and 60 ladies-in-waiting so these apartments must have been packed. In later years, Guy Fawkes confessed his Gunpowder Plot here, perhaps assisted by some guards. Rendition anyone?
 |
The right green is where the few executions inside the castle took place (most were near the subway stop just to the north called Tower hill.) Women typically lost their heads here as they needed a bit more decorum. (We wouldn't want to ruin a hairdo over a little thing like a beheading). On May 19, 1536, Anne's Thousand Days of Fame ended here in the French style (she knelt, no block was used, and was decapitated by a sword. Only 7 people have been beheaded here including another of Henry VIII's queens, all by axe except for Anne.) She was probably somewhat grateful for this as she knew old Henry was originally planning on burning her to death. The condemned were expected to tip the axman (probably in advance). To the right of that is the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincul (St. Peter in Chains) where Anne's head and body were put in a grave unmarked until a later restoration found them; today they get a marble marker. Today historians view her as one of the most intelligent and important Queens in English history (but she was certainly eclipsed by her daughter Elizabeth I who was also imprisoned in the Tower of London for a spell).
Below is another view of the center of this area: the late 13th century Beauchamp Tower, named after a famous early prisoner descendent from rich and prolific John of Gaunt and one of his mistresses. The whole clan was eventually legitimized and their descendents became the Tudors.
 |
The accommodations were good in Beauchamp Tower and so nobles in trouble were typically imprisoned here. This makes the graffiti on the walls really top drawer. St. Peter's chapel to the right was originally a local parish church but the expanding castle walls cut it off from its parish. The original burnt down in 1512 and this building replaced it just in time to receive the bodies of those decapitated here and on Tower Hill -- all in unmarked graves.
On the opposite (east) side of the White Tower is the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers Museum, filled with their colors, uniforms, maps, campaign histories, etc. of this light infantry group.
 |
The buildings above and below housed the officers and enlisted men (respectively) of the London Royal Fusiliers. The building above is now a museum to those Fusiliers and is not well visited (and for good reason unless you're a real military history buff). The one below is quite popular as it now contains the crown jewels (at least the ones used in coronations since 1660 when the crown was restored to Charles II after the Cromwell years. The Parliamentarians had melted down the previously-used crowns into coins.) Built as the Waterloo Barracks in 1845, this building housed nearly 1000 light infantrymen.
 |
Except during World War II, the crown jewels have been stored in the Tower of London since they were stolen from Westminster Abbey in 1303. They've been in this building since 1967--first in a nuclear-bomb proof basement and then to a more visitor-friendly first floor area, three times the original size, with moving sidewalks that can accommodate 2500 visitors per hour moving past the coronation regalia protected by 2-inch shatterproof glass. (However, it's unlikely that the new display space could survive a nuclear attack so maybe North Koreans should have their purses checked. If truth be told, a librarian died and 41 others --including 8 children-- were injured in the White Tower by a bomb explosion in 1974. No one took responsibility but the IRA was suspect. The Tower of London is still under attack.)
As the picture above shows, a collection of cannons front the Waterloo Barracks. Many decorated armaments can be found in the inner courtyard including the one below made by the Dutch in 1607 for the Knights of Malta. The fancy carriage was built by Brits in 1827.
 |
The Tower of London has a long standing reputation as a place of torture and horror. Below are displays of "the rack." To use, insert hands and feet into the nooses and ask a close friend to pull the lever on the right which will turn the top and bottom drums in opposite directions. A Tudor form of Yoga, perhaps.
 |
This display is in Wakefield tower which originally had rooms on the lower floors to house the soldiers who protected royalty. These were converted to cells and torture parlors. Torture was used (but far from common) primarily during the century of religious strife starting with Henry VIII through James I. English records exist for only 81 tortures, 48 of those were accomplished in the Tower, all between 1540 and 1640. |
 |
And a final picture of the late-2nd-or-early-3rd-century Roman city wall found next to the White Tower. The small sign in lower right tells us that William the Conqueror used the city wall as the eastern edge of his fortification. Later the castle added a large building on this spot that was torn down in 1879. Progress!
 |
What's missing on the grounds? The animals. London kept its zoo here starting possibly with King John (the Magna Carta guy) back in 1204. William Blake saw his Tiger's fearful symmetry here. By 1835 the animals had all moved to the Regency Park Zoo. Except, of course, for those famous Ravens.
But we didn't see the Ravens of the Tower of London since all six were quarantined inside during our visit to keep them from contracting bird flu. Supposedly the British Monarchy will fall if all the ravens leave (even though they were all gone for a while in 1946 -- was that when the Prince of Wales was born?) Charles II tried to rid the tower of the birds when they began making deposits on his telescope. When informed of this legend, he decided not to tempt fate, given the recent English Civil War . They've been there before him and ever since. Clipped wings make them stay here. London has lots of pigeons to man (or pigeon) the other tourist attractions. Watch your telescope! (In fact, the tower uses falcons to keep the pigeons away.)
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.