Tower of London

OVERVIEW

A stone citadel on the north bank of the Thames founded by William the Conqueror at the end of 1066, with the White Tower begun around 1078 and rings of walls added under Richard I, Henry III and Edward I. It has been a royal residence, an armoury, the Mint, the menagerie, the home of the Crown Jewels and, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a state prison. It is cared for by Historic Royal Palaces, guarded by the Yeomen Warders, and is a World Heritage Site.

HISTORY

Only seven people were executed inside the walls before the twentieth century — among them Anne Boleyn (19 May 1536), Catherine Howard (1542), Lady Jane Grey (1554) and Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (1541) — while 112 died on Tower Hill outside. Henry VI died in the Wakefield Tower in May 1471; the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and his brother, disappeared inside it in 1483. Twelve men were shot for espionage in the two world wars.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Anne Boleyn is said to walk the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, where she is buried, and the White Tower; the Princes, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Pole and Henry VI are named in the tradition too. Two accounts are on paper in their own time: in January 1816 a sentry at the Jewel House reported an apparition of a bear and, the story goes, died of fright days later; in October 1817 Edmund Lenthal Swifte, Keeper of the Crown Jewels, saw a glowing cylinder hover over his wife's shoulder at supper in the Jewel House, and published the account himself in Notes and Queries in 1860. Night staff have reported figures and sounds since. The Tower records its ghosts as part of its history; nothing is claimed beyond that.

VISITING

Open daily, ticketed; the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula is on the Yeoman Warder tour. The Tower is a working royal palace with a garrison.