Date: 18th April 2014
Looking back, it was equally great that we managed to tour outside the Tower of London by chance when we spotted it while having a good coffee break at Starbucks. After the coffee, we walked bypassing the tower palace in search for the next metro line heading towards the famous London parks (for clarification, it is famous according to Malaysian who loves to visit the park whenever they are in London). It was an exchange visit to the 2 places, Buckingham Palace and the Eye of London which we did not managed to find till the end. We are very positive to return in the near future so that we can visit all those places in the next visit. In the meantime, I would like to share the history of the Tower of London as narrated by Wikipedia for my personal reference.
The
Tower of London is actually Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, a historic
castle located on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies
within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of
the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. Rest
assured that those Tower Hill has long gone, flattened by a vast development of
London’s city. 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, resented a symbol of oppression,
inflicted upon London by the new ruling elite. The castle was used as a prison
from 1100 until 1952, although that was not its primary purpose. It was
originally intended as a grand palace early in its history, served as a royal
residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within 2
concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. 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.
Having had her wedding photo at the Tower |
The
Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged
several times and has been 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 Tudor dynasty (1485-1603), 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 who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she
became queen, were held here. 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. 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 Second World War, damage caused during the Blitz was repaired and the
castle reopened to the public. Today the Tower of London is one of the
country's most popular tourist attractions. Under the ceremonial charge of the
Constable of the Tower, it is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces
and is protected as a World Heritage Site.
The
Tower was oriented with its strongest and most impressive defences overlooking
Saxon London, which archaeologist Alan Vince suggests was deliberate. 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 with a
further 6 acres around the Tower of London constituting the Tower Liberties,
land under the direct influence of the castle and cleared for military reasons.
The precursor of the Liberties was laid out in the 13th century when Henry III
ordered that a strip of land adjacent to the castle be kept clear. Despite
popular fiction, the Tower of London never had a permanent torture chamber,
although the basement of the White Tower housed a rack in later periods. Tower
Wharf was built on the bank of the Thames under Edward I and was expanded to
its current size during the reign of Richard II (1377–1399).
The
Tower of London has become established as one of the most popular tourist
attractions in the country. It has been a tourist attraction since at least the
Elizabethan period, when it was one of the sights of London that foreign
visitors wrote about. Its most popular attractions were the Royal Menagerie and
displays of armour. The Crown Jewels also garner much interest, and have been
on public display since 1669. The Tower steadily gained popularity with
tourists through the 19th century, despite the opposition of the Duke of
Wellington to visitors. Numbers became so high that by 1851 a purpose-built
ticket office was erected. By the end of the century, over 500,000 were visiting
the castle every year.
Ticket's booth seated across the Tower |
Over
the 18th and 19th centuries, the palatial buildings were slowly adapted for
other uses and demolished. Only the Wakefield and St Thomas' Towers survive.
The 18th century marked an increasing interest in England's medieval past. One
of the effects was the emergence of Gothic Revival architecture. In the Tower's
architecture, this was manifest when the New Horse Armoury was built in 1825
against the south face of the White Tower. It featured elements of Gothic
Revival architecture such as battlements. Other buildings were remodelled to
match the style and the Waterloo Barracks were described as "castellated
Gothic of the 15th century". Between 1845 and 1885 institutions such as
the Mint which had inhabited the castle for centuries moved to other sites;
many of the post-medieval structures left vacant were demolished. In 1855 the
War Office took over responsibility for manufacture and storage of weapons from
the Ordnance Office, which was gradually phased out of the castle. At the same
time, there was greater interest in the history of the Tower of London.
No comments:
Post a Comment