Building history of the Tower of London

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Plan of the tower 1597
Plan of the tower 2012

The building history of the Tower of London spans almost 1000 years. On the remains of the Roman city wall of London , William the Conqueror had a castle built from 1066 and the White Tower , the oldest surviving part of the Tower of London , from 1077/78 . Wilhelm's successor Richard I , Heinrich III. and Edward I gave the tower its current exterior shape in the Middle Ages with three fortress rings surrounded by a moat. The tower has three fortress rings, three gate towers, a dominating keep and dozens of other structures .

In the following centuries, various English kings and the Board of Ordnance built and demolished buildings within the fortress rings, raised walls, had gates changed, demolished or rebuilt, and tried to adapt the fortress to the current weapon technology. Major renovations were carried out under Henry VIII , who was also the last king to use the tower for personal purposes. Under the Board of Ordnance, numerous baroque interior structures were built that were the same size as the White Tower. The Grand Storehouse was particularly influential here . Large fires broke out in the tower several times. In particular, this happened in 1777 when the south courtyard with the old royal palace burned down and in 1841 when the Grand Storehouse went up in flames.

The last major construction works took place in the late 19th century. A neo-Gothic redesign began under the builders Anthony Salvin and John Taylor . They pulled down numerous buildings inside, replaced brick with “more authentic medieval stones” and rebuilt some towers and walls in neo-Gothic style.

William the Conqueror: White Tower

The White Tower.

After riots broke out in the city after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 on the occasion of the coronation of William the Conqueror as English King in Westminster Abbey at Christmas 1066, William ordered the construction of a castle to allow the Normans to rule over the City of London to secure the largest city in England by far and the surrounding area of Middlesex , today's Greater London . The tower was one of a number of earth and stone fortresses that Wilhelm had built to consolidate the power of the Normans in England. He ordered a number of fortresses to be built around London. While Windsor Castle secured access to the city from the west, the tower was intended to control access from the east. Baynard's Castle was built where Blackfriars is now west of the city on the Thames, Montfichet Castle north of London.

Wilhelm used the still existing Roman city wall of Londinium and had the building erected in its southeast corner, so that the preserved Roman walls protected the tower to the east and south to the Thames. The Tower began life as a hastily built wooden fortress protected by a moat to the west towards the city center.

Originally, Wilhelm had a 200 by 400 foot (about 70 by 140 meter) wooden fortress built, but this was replaced a few years later by the stone building of the White Tower. The White Tower was built from 1077 or 1078 under the direction of Gundulf , Bishop of Rochester. Its design was based on the donjons of Normandy, for example in Rouen or Ivry-la-Bataille , but its monumental size was unprecedented until then. Wilhelm had it furnished with luxurious living quarters, as well as reception rooms, a chapel and other representative rooms that made the Tower the only royal residence in the City of London. While these rooms were arranged around a central courtyard in most of the castles of the time, Wilhelm had them built in the tower on several floors in a single building for security reasons.

When Wilhelm the Conqueror died in 1087, the White Tower was only half finished. Construction progressed slowly under his son Wilhelm II . The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that the complex was surrounded by a wall in 1097. The White Tower was probably not completed until the reign of Henry I (1100–1135). Precise statements can be made neither archaeologically nor from written records about buildings in the reigns of the following kings. The Wardrobe Tower probably falls during this time. The tower, which is now only in ruins, is a converted Roman bastion that stood in the Roman city walls of London. The Norman builders built a taller watchtower on the bottom of the bastion.

William Longchamp: innermost fortress ring

Bell Tower, partly from the 12th century.

While Richard I went on the crusades, William of Longchamp , Lord Chancellor of England, began to develop the tower into a fortress. He reinforced the other walls around the White Tower. He expanded it to the west, and for the first time provided it with smaller watchtowers at the corners. One of them, the Bell Tower built around 1190, is still partially preserved. It was built in a polygonal design, which allowed a better view of potential attackers than the rectangular design of the White Tower. The curved surfaces of the Bell Tower also served to deflect projectiles. It formed part of a new wall facing the water that delimited the innermost ring. The inner curtain between the Bell Tower and the Bloody Tower that still exists today is part of this fortification. Longchamp began the unsuccessful attempt to build a moat around the tower. Richard's brother Johann Ohneland tested these new systems as early as 1191 when he tried to conquer the tower in the power struggles with his brother. The fortress withstood these attempts, but had to be surrendered for lack of food.

Heinrich III .: inner fortress ring

Various rulers expanded the fortress in the 12th and 13th centuries. Around this time, the entire fortress was named the Tower of London. Heinrich III was decisive for the current shape of the tower . who extended the fortress to the mainland from 1220 to 1238, and to the river from 1238 to 1272. Heinrich had a new fortress ring, a total of eight towers and a permanently filled moat built. During his time, the Wakefield Tower was built and the royal apartments and state rooms were remodeled. The also under Heinrich III. Queens Tower was torn down in the 19th century and the Lanthorn Tower was rebuilt at this point .

Heinrich began building the facilities around what is now the innermost fortress ring. In addition to the Wakefield Tower, this also included the Bloody Gate and the Great Hall . Both the work on the great hall and other household-related constructions indicate that Heinrich wanted to upgrade the tower as a residential building, and wanted it to be on a level with Windsor Castle or the residences in Winchester and Clarendon. Heinrich had the king and queen's apartments redecorated, whitewashed the walls and imported five tons of marble from Dorset to expand the interior. Heinrich also had the outside of the keep whitewashed and laid rain gutters so that water that ran down would not stain the paint. The term White Tower for the keep comes from this time.

After Heinrich had to hide in the tower for a month in the wake of the upheavals surrounding the wedding of his sister Eleanor of England with Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, in front of angry nobles, he began to expand the tower as a fortress on top of the current one State of the fortress technology. In addition to reinforced walls and a new gate, Devereux Tower , Bowyer Tower , Martin Tower , Broad Arrow Tower and Salt Tower were built during this time .

At times he lost control of the fortress completely in the conflict with the barons through the Provisions of Oxford , and had to hand it over to Hugh Le Bigod . From France, he nevertheless ordered the fortress to be expanded further. During this work, the inner ramparts were completed, and Coldharbour Gate was built , the central land-side gate to today's innermost fortress ring - and Heinrich secretly returned to the fortress.

Edward I .: outer fortress ring

Edward had the current outer wall built and the moat.

Edward I, who had extensive experience of warfare in the British Isles and the Continent, continued his predecessor's ambitious building program. He expanded the inner wall so that a real ring castle was built, and had a new trench dug and new outer walls built, so that a total of three defensive rings were created. The fortress rings became higher inwards so that defenders on the inner rings could shoot over their fellow combatants on the outer rings. Should the outer fortress rings fall, the defenders would still have a height advantage. The outer walls of the tower thus achieved their present shape.

Edward replaced the big gate of his predecessor with two new gates: one to the water and one on land on the west (city) side of the fortress. St Thomas's Tower, named after Thomas Beckett , was built in 1275 . The protected by this arched gate to the Thames, which later Traitors' Gate ( Traitor ) was called, replaced the water access via the Wakefield Tower. The king's sleeping quarters were temporarily located above the gate.

Edward completely redesigned the land side access. After the renovations, it comprised three double-leaf gates with drawbridges and portcullis , which were connected by embankments. The newly dug water ditch, designed by Flemish master Walter, was 50 meters wide and several meters deep when the Thames flooded. In the 1280s the Byward Tower and Middle Tower were completed. This made the tower the first ring castle in the British Isles and had reached its present-day area.

Since the 13th century

Contemporary depiction from the 15th century

In the times after Edward I, extensions and conversions followed rather sporadically and often ad hoc. Edward II tried to protect the tower several times during the crises of his government, but otherwise cared little about the building. He had the outer wall between Byward Tower and St Thomas's Tower , the western fortification on the Thames, further built up.

Edward III dealt more systematically with the fortress, which in the meantime had played an important role as an archive and warehouse for military equipment. In 1335 he had the condition of the tower examined, and based on this report, repair and renovation measures were carried out. Edward III had the rest of the outer wall on the Thames side reinforced between 1336 and 1340 and built up to the height that still exists today. A small water gate was created that many kings used for private access to the tower, the Cradle Tower . At the very eastern end of the facility, a gate for pedestrians was built with the Develin Tower and Iron Gate , which also made the tower accessible from the east and connected the Hospital St Katharine by the Tower with the tower.

Edward III had the king's living quarters expanded, including redesigning the Great Hall. Edward had the gates at Byward Tower and Bloody Tower expanded. Inside the complex, new living quarters for the resident governor were built in the tower in place of today's Queen's House. There is probably still building fabric from Edward's buildings. Among other things, the magnificent vault was created in the passage of the Bloody Tower . In order to meet the increasing demands of the military for storage space in the tower, other rooms were partially rededicated, such as even the former living quarters of the king in St Thomas's Tower, and a large extension was built south of the White Tower, of which only a few plan drawings are left today witness.

Tower Wharf was also built in the 14th century , and in this form it was filled in again in the 20th century. Starting from a narrow pier in the west of the tower, the pier grew in several stages (1338, 1360 and 1369) to the east until it occupied most of the south side of the tower. In times of the Hundred Years War , the replenishment warehouse in the Tower should be connected as well as possible to the Thames and thus indirectly to the English Channel.

The only military assault on the fortress fell during the Hundred Years War. Rebels under Wat Tyler stormed the fortress and encountered no resistance. They insulted the king's mother, and his lord chancellor was beheaded on Tower Hill.

The Tower under the Tudors

Queen's House, built under Henry VIII.

From the 16th century onwards, work on the actual defenses of the tower finally stalled. Numerous government agencies and organizations, from the royal armory to the mint to the archive, had meanwhile become at home in the Tower. Although these ensured regular new construction and an expansion of the inner buildings, they prevented the expansion of the defenses - strengthening them would probably have cost the various groups space that they were not prepared to make available. The most important buildings from the Tudor era took place under Henry VIII . He had the fortress church of St. Peter ad Vincula completely rebuilt, the Queen's House , the largest building of the Tudor period, and the first defensive structures provided with loopholes for handguns. The King's Gallery , which Henry VII had built between Wakefield Tower and Lanthorn Tower, was expanded during Heinrich's time . The last representative living quarters for a king in the tower come from Henry VIII.

One of the many interior buildings erected in the centuries that followed - and many of which are no longer there - was the construction of one of England's first modern barracks on Mint Street in 1669-1670. The Grand Storehouse , which later fell victim to a fire, is significant . The administrative building of the Board of Ordnance, and the New Armories in front of the White Tower were later demolished. In addition, dozens of smaller buildings, apartment houses and other structures were built. There were also two pubs on the outer wall of the tower, which were also demolished in the 19th century.

The medieval Coldharbour Gate fell victim to the change of use in the tower. Ever since gunpowder was stored in the White Tower, the Board of Ordnance has enforced a building-free protective corridor around the White Tower. The remaining medieval palace complexes outside the White Tower fell victim to two great fires in 1774 and 1788, their remains were then quickly torn down and replaced by new storage and administration buildings. The fire killed the Great Hall, the Lanthorn Tower, the Tudor Gallery near the Salt Tower, and the southern part of the Inner Curtain.

19th century: staging of the Middle Ages

Waterloo Block, built around 1848 as a barracks.
Photo of the tower from 1893

The last thorough renovation took place in 1840, when the Chartists upset Great Britain and the British royal family brought the tower back up to the state of defense technology at the time. The Duke of Wellington carried out the last military modifications during his time as constable of the Tower from 1825 to 1852. In 1848 he had the fortress prepared against potential unrest by the Chartists, and banned the tourism and public traffic that was already taking place at that time from the fortress. The constable had the Waterloo Block built - barracks in which the British Army then housed around 1,000 men; today the location of the Jewel House .

Casemates followed in 1853 and 1856 on the outer ring, in which he had the officers housed, and in which the guards, the Yeomen Warders, now live. But the Duke of Wellington also prepared another use in his time: In 1843 he had the moat drained.

The 19th century saw a profound change in use. By 1850 the Royal Mint, Menagerie, and Archives had left the Tower and moved to buildings further outside central London. Tourism and sightseeing increased. In the 19th century this was followed by major renovations inside. Buildings from previous centuries that were no longer needed were demolished and others erected. Following the fashion of the time, the builders tried to restore the tower to as medieval a state as possible. The casemates from 1856 were redesigned in a campaign by the architect Anthony Salvin , who - supported by Victoria's Prince Consort Albert - called for a re-medievalization of the tower.

Instead of building in brick with reminiscences of classical architecture, as in the previous centuries , Salvin called for the building with natural stone, which should look as true to the original as possible . Salvin's first work in the Tower was the restoration of the Beauchamp Tower . Salvin and his successor John Taylor had numerous windows from centuries before replaced, as well as brick repairs, or interior fittings in public spaces that appeared too modern. The parts of the tower designed by Salvin and Taylor were given a clear neo-Gothic appearance. At the same time, however, he had the original medieval floor of the Wakefield Tower replaced, for example, in order to be able to stage the crown jewels in it more stylishly than was the case in the Martin Tower. It was also during this period that parts of the Inner Ring were redesigned to create a garden-like Tower Green, and a plaque was put up for Anne Boleyn .

For both military and aesthetic reasons, the builders of the 19th century had numerous buildings removed from the fortress area. These include the first extensions to the White Tower from the 12th century, of which only the Wardrobe Tower has survived in fragments. The Horse Armory , the buildings used by the Ordnance Office and Record Office in the 17th century, also fell victim to this clarification . Taylor replaced the southern inner wall with a more medieval-looking one, not without destroying original holdings from the Middle Ages during these conversions. Taylor's work sparked a heated dispute with the newly founded Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings , which became one of the first fundamental discussions on modern monument protection in the 19th century.

20th century: destruction and reconstruction

Tower 1968. At this point before the big cleaning.

The arrangement of the buildings in the tower has essentially remained the same since around 1900. However, both world wars as well as further modernizations and adjustments to modern tourism left their mark.

During the First World War, the German armed forces originally had the order to spare the historic castles and churches of London. As the length of the war and the number of air raids increased, the war also affected the tower. The tunnel between Tower Wharf and White Tower was set up as an air raid shelter. In June 1917, a bomb landed in the trench next to Legge's Mount, but did not explode. Their only victims were two pigeons. Explosive fragments from various bombs damaged the outer wall several times. However, the greatest damage that a single projectile caused was caused by fire . An anti-airstrike gun on Tower Bridge accidentally destroyed an auxiliary building next to Bowyer Tower.

However, various buildings in the tower were destroyed by German air raids during the Second World War and rebuilt in the years after the war. A total of 15 German aircraft bombs fell on the tower area. Several buildings were completely destroyed, not a single tower building was unscathed by the Second World War. The North Bastion in the middle of the northern wall barely survived a bomb hit in the trench in September 1940, only to be destroyed by a direct hit on October 5, 1940. The late Victorian Main Guard station burned down during this period, as did the northern part of the Old Hospital Block and the former building of the royal coin treasurer. Some of these were built: the bastion and guard building were not restored in order to create a condition closer to the medieval tower. The final aftermath of the war was removed in 1959 when a small bunker at Tower Wharf was dismantled.

Since the 1960s, there has been another return to the history of the building. Extensive archaeological excavations began, and restorers tried in several places to restore it to a medieval state. For example, for the first time in 300 years, a wooden staircase was built that made the original entrance to the White Tower accessible. Also in the 1960s, cleaning work began on buildings that had not seen this for hundreds of years. Looking back over time, the Tower's former official historian Geoffrey Parnell writes that it is hard to imagine today how incredibly dirty the fortress was in the 1950s.

Remarks

  1. ^ A b Ivan Lapper, Geoffrey Parnell: The Tower of London. A 2000-Year History ( Landmarks in History ). Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2000, pp. 16-18.
  2. ^ A b c Nigel R. Jones: Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005 ISBN 0313318506 , p. 287
  3. ^ A b c John Steane: The archeology of medieval England and Wales Taylor & Francis, 1985 ISBN 0709923856 , p. 8
  4. ^ Marc Morris: Castle. A History of the Buildings That Shaped Medieval Britain. Pan Macmillan, London 2003, pp. 52-55.
  5. ^ A b Anthony Sutcliffe : London: an architectural history Yale University Press, 2006 ISBN 0300110065 , p. 12
  6. ^ A b c Anthony Emery: Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300-1500: Southern England Cambridge University Press, 2006 ISBN 052158132X , p. 245
  7. ↑ Ivan Lapper, Geoffrey Parnell: The Tower of London. A 2000-Year History ( Landmarks in History ). Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2000, p. 19.
  8. ↑ a b c Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan 2007. as pdf ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) p. 19
  9. ^ Ralph Merrifield: London: City of Romans University of California Press, 1983 ISBN 0520049225 , p. 233
  10. ^ A b John Steane: The archeology of medieval England and Wales Taylor & Francis, 1985 ISBN 0709923856 , p. 9
  11. ↑ Simon Thurley: Royal Lodgings at The Tower of London 1216-1327 in: Architectural History, Vol. 38, (1995) p. 37
  12. ^ A b John Steane: The archeology of medieval England and Wales Taylor & Francis, 1985 ISBN 0709923856 , p. 10
  13. ^ A b Simon Thurley: Royal Lodgings at The Tower of London 1216-1327 in: Architectural History, Vol. 38, (1995) p. 39
  14. ↑ Simon Thurley: Royal Lodgings at The Tower of London 1216-1327 in: Architectural History, Vol. 38, (1995) p. 40
  15. ^ A b Simon Thurley: Royal Lodgings at The Tower of London 1216-1327 in: Architectural History, Vol. 38, (1995) p. 46
  16. ↑ Simon Thurley: Royal Lodgings at The Tower of London 1216-1327 in: Architectural History, Vol. 38, (1995) p. 47
  17. ^ A b John Steane: The archeology of medieval England and Wales Taylor & Francis, 1985 ISBN 0709923856 , p. 11
  18. ↑ Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan 2007. as pdf ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  19. ^ A b Edward Impey and Geoffrey Parnell: The Tower of London. The Official Illustrated History Merrel London 2000, ISBN 1-85894-106-7 , p. 41
  20. ^ A b c d Edward Impey and Geoffrey Parnell: The Tower of London. The Official Illustrated History Merrel London 2000, ISBN 1-85894-106-7 , p. 42
  21. ↑ a b Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan 2007. as pdf ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) p. 24
  22. ↑ Parnell 1993 p. 55
  23. ↑ Parnell 1993 p. 111
  24. ↑ Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan 2007. /Tower%20of%20London%20World%20Heritage%20Site%20Management%20Plan.pdf as pdf  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. P. 30@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.hrp.org.uk  
  25. ↑ a b c d Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan 2007. as pdf ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) p. 32
  26. ↑ Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan 2007. as pdf ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) p. 12
  27. ↑ a b c Historic Royal Palaces: Tower of London World Heritage Site - Management Plan 2007. as pdf ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) p. 31
  28. ^ Nigel R. Jones: Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005 ISBN 0313318506 , p. 290
  29. ↑ Geoffrey Parnell: The Tower of London: Past and Present The History Press 2009, ISBN 978-0752450360 , p. 79
  30. ↑ C. Sabbioni et al .: The Tower of London: a case study on stone damage in an urban area in C. Saiz-Jimenes (ed.): Air Pollution and Cultural Heritage Taylor & Francis, 2004 ISBN 9058096823 , p. 57
  31. ↑ Geoffrey Parnell: The Tower of London: Past and Present The History Press 2009, ISBN 978-0752450360 , p. 80
  32. ↑ a b Parnell 1993 p. 115

literature

  • John Charlton (Ed.): The Tower of London. Its Buildings and Institutions. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1978, ISBN 0-11-670347-4 .
  • Geoffrey Parnell: English Heritage Book of the Tower of London. Batsford, London 1993, ISBN 0-7134-6864-5 .