Tower of London

We visited the Tower of London the other day.  Of course the crown jewels are their centre-piece, unfortunately you can't take any photos of those, probably some sort of security risk, I suppose.  It was a lovely day and there were a lot of people out enjoying the sunshine.  It felt like we got there kind of late, but then, looking at the queues for the crown jewels later in the day made me think that perhaps, in Europe, you are never as late as what you think.

It kind of feels, though, that they aren't making the most of what they have.  I mean the grounds and the buildings look lovely and seem really well preserved, but you have to think that perhaps the White Tower isn't the best place to keep a whole bunch of armour and swords in.

The white tower, built by William the Conqueror

This building has been used, almost continuously, by the rulers of England since William the Conqueror.  That's some serious history there.  Currently it is used as the armoury museum, but using it for that seems to ignore the fact that you are standing inside an 11th century keep.  Perhaps the history and the building itself should be embraced more.  They obviously have spent a lot of time and energy on the crown jewels, and the presentation there is really good.  Giving the kings and queens since William in 1066 and their coats of arms, before close-ups of the different jewels.  Though it could be argued that perhaps the crown jewels are the least historical thing there.  I think a lot of what they used to have was lost when Oliver Cromwell went a bit crazy, so what you see is all dated from 1660 or later.

Amazing designs on gold-plated armour

What I would love to see is more information on the lineage of these rulers, how they interacted, where they came from, when and how the different houses took over.  It seems that a lot of the time, blood didn't really have much to do with it, and it was more who had the biggest army.  They all seemed to inter-marry as well, and since they all have about the same 4 names a bit of a family tree would be kind of useful.  I don't know, perhaps they think that the majority of visitors are all English and should really know all this stuff, and perhaps they are.  But when we were there there were an awful lot of Spanish, and not a whole stack of English accents around the place.

They have a small exhibit on the prisoners at the tower and torture used, but again it would have been great to see more on this.  We saw a recreation of what Sir Walter Raleigh's cell would have looked like, but again not much on the history, why he was imprisoned that sort of thing.

Not taking any chances with ravens escaping

Also that was the only cell like it we saw, when Anne Boleyn was held there, prince's disappeared there, future king's were held, it would have been great if more had been made of it.

I think next time we go we'll try a Yeoman tour, I think they add a lot to the experience, in giving you the history and back stories which are missing from the exhibits themselves.

Where the lower ranked yeomen live, on the outskirts of the tower

Tower green, all the high-ranking yeomen live around here.  The ravens all have their wings clipped which I guess explains the need for the perches on the ground.

Tower Bridge in the distance

Looking across the Thames at the new developments

The White Tower and my new haircut

Tower green with a slightly older guard. 

Outside the barracks, that guard looked about 16

Weird dragon sculpture from armour

A lion of St Mark, this was taken from Venice, but I'm not sure if it's a replica or not.  I imagine the real lion is probably in the British Museum.

There was an exhibit on the animals which used to be kept in the zoo here.  Basically you could just walk around with the wild animals.  This led to a lion attacking a lady and ripping her arm off.