27th January 2023
To the best of my knowledge I had never in almost six decades stepped inside the Tower of London. A Christmas present of a year’s Historic Royal Palaces membership gave the opportunity to rectify that omission. It was much as I expected and yet in some ways not. For a start in January it was less crowded than I had feared.
Even so I’d had to book a timed ticket for entry, a lingering after effect of the COVID pandemic that’s now common to many public attractions. Arriving at my allowed time I joined the next guided tour of the grounds led by a Yeoman Warder. These are worth taking for a general scene-setting laced with some mild squaddie humour - the 33 YWs being all long serving military personnel - and you get a slick, well practiced performance covering the history of the castle, majoring on the infamous and bloody bits.Those bits include the well known beheaded queens, missing presumed murdered princes etc. but there’s a lot of other stuff covered as well including about the Yeoman Warders themselves.
After being dismissed on Tower Green by the former site of the scaffold you can explore on your own.
I went for an amble around the smaller towers and inner ward then past the armed guards into Waterloo Block to see the Crown Jewels which you’re not allowed to photograph. Several items were off site being prepared for this summer’s coronation of King Charles III. Where he will be crowned, not effing “coronated” as I heard said more than once in there.
Having been funnelled out through the “Jewels Gift Shop” at the East end of Waterloo Block I eschewed the Fusiliers Museum - regimental museums tend to be much alike - and headed instead for the cafe in the former Royal Armouries where I can tell you they do a decent cuppa and you get 10% off as a member. I can come back again for the Fusiliers.
After that it was time to follow the group of French students up the wooden stairs into the White Tower, the central keep that is the feature of many a classic view the Tower of London. This is several floors mostly stuffed with arms and armour including that of the ever present Henry VIII and his massive codpiece.
There’s a lot to see inside the White Tower, it’s really a museum within a museum, the Royal Armouries Collection is huge and due to the one way system employed to keep the tourists flowing I’m convinced there was a bit that I missed. Still, membership, I can go again. The Yeoman Warder on the earlier tour had warned that there was something truly horrific located in the basement, yet another gift shop to negotiate in order to reach the exit. There’s also an exhibition about the other methods of torture formerly employed at the tower but that’s located in the Lower Wakefield Tower across the inner ward.
Having explored most of the rest of the Tower’s nooks and crannies, or at least those open to the public, the day was drawing on and I was rewarded with a shot of the early evening sunset illuminating the White Tower before I handed for the exit. The Tower of London is one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions and worth a visit, probably needs ore than one. I’d avoid the main summer tourist season though, it’s probably absolute torture.
Oh, and I can confirm that the ravens are still there. Most of them currently confined to an aviary to protect them from Avian Flu but one has escaped and is flying about scaring the shit out of tourists from the far east who are unwise enough to attempt to get a selfie with him.
