The Tower

A bit of catch up here...

Last week I visited London's busiest tourist attraction... The Tower of London.

Thankfully it is off-season and it was a tad overcast and drizzly... so the place was relatively quiet. The crowds must be murder in summer! (pun intended)

In hindsight, a place of such misery and horror is perhaps best viewed when the weather is grey and cold. To visit when it is sunny and warm I think would feel a bit disrespectful.

My feet were cold and damp all day, and the breeze and rain got under the collar of my coat. All in all prefect weather.

The day started with a tour by the Yeomen Warders of Her Majesties Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London - better know as Beefeaters. The tour is 30 minutes of great information, anecdotes and stories about the Tower, its history and its residents. For the record... the Beefeaters remain residents of the Tower and have their homes (with their families) and a pub within its walls.

I did the standard tourist things and viewed the Crown Jewels - from an airport style moving walkway, which is all a bit "American", but I guess it helps move the summer crowds through the exhibit. They are all very shiny and glittery, but the real interest for me was less well polished. The entire place is quite amazing and took me 4 hours to walk around, but 2 places captured my attention.

The first can only be visited on the tour with the Yeomen Warder. The Chapel Royal is a small stone church tucked away in the corner of the Tower complex. Beneath the floor and in the walls of this church are most of the people who died at the Tower. Tower records showed that little more than 300 people had been buried in the chapel after execution or death by other means. Excavations in the 19th century found well over 1000 bodies... considering the size of the chapel getting this number of people under the floor is extraordinary in itself! It is also holds the graves of 3 of Henry VIII wives, Anne Boleyne, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey. The walls and floors are covered with memorials to those dead, but unfortunately the tour only allows a few minutes, no real time to take the place in properly. It is a wrenchingly sad place. To know that so many came to rest here for so little reason. I am sure some were terrible people, but most were just victims of circumstance or prejudice or of being born on the wrong side of the political fence.

The second allowed more time for contemplation. Beauchamp Tower was the last place of residence for many of the political prisoners of the Tower. It is a small hexagonal tower with 2 floors. Prisoners were kept on the upper floor in what would have been reasonable comfort by the standards of other areas of the Tower, and it would have been a refuge between bouts of torture. The room itself is unremarkable with basic stone walls and floor and a large fireplace. What is remarkable is the legacy of wall carvings left by those who resided here over the centuries. Carved into the walls are messages of hope and misery, messages to loved ones and political supporters, last words generally... carved with the words are elaborate coats of arms and decorations depicting families and allegiances. I sat for quite a long time and read those words (well the translations anyway, as most are in Latin), and there are hundreds, of the long dead and doomed who lived their last weeks, months or years in that room... whether guilty of their crimes or not.

The Tower is definitely a must for anyone visiting London... even if you only have an hour to spend there. I am sure everyone would find something to capture their imagination... there are priceless gems, suits of armor, guns, cannon, torture, dead Prince's and Queens, beautiful, ancient stone buildings and a rather decent cafe too!


...and of course right next to the Tower of London, standing majestically abreast the River Thames, is the Tower Bridge... but I will have to go back for that... all I had time to do was take the photo...