White Tower
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The White Tower is the keep of the Towers of London . The tower, which was built in 1078, is the largest tower in the fortress with an area of 32.5 meters × 36 meters. Over the centuries it served as a royal residence and a prison, among other things. Today there is an exhibition in the tower. Its striking design ensured that the entire fortress became known as the Tower ( tower ), although it consists of numerous other buildings, walls and moats in addition to the White Tower.
Building history
The White Tower is located at the southeast end of the City of London on the massive rock of Tower Hill . It has a prominent location compared to the rest of the city, the old Roman city wall could be used by the builders as an additional security system.
Around 1078, William the Conqueror commissioned his builder, Bishop Gundulf of Rochester, to build the castle. It was to serve as one of several fortresses against insurgent tendencies in the city of London . When building the complex, Gundulf oriented himself towards fortresses in France and Germany, in particular the castle of the Norman rulers in Rouen , which has since been destroyed , was the inspiration. The White Tower contained the arrangement of a large hall, living rooms and chapel typical for this type of building. While these rooms were usually arranged as separate buildings around an inner courtyard, Wilhelm had them built over several floors in one building.
architecture
The tower belongs to the group of hall-keeps, a type of tower that is only found in early Norman architecture in England .
Turret and chapel
The tower has an almost square floor plan with four protruding corner towers. At three of the four corners there are rectangular turrets, the turret in the northeast is round. Through the semicircular bulge in the east, the chancel of St. John's chapel is visible on the outside. The facade is clearly subdivided by flat buttresses . The extension of the chapel was probably not planned from the beginning, but only added in the course of construction. Archaeological excavations also suggest that this was originally lower than it is today. The weather vanes on the towers are from 1668, the battlements from 1637/1638, made by the stonemason William Mills . The main building material is a very hard limestone (so-called Kentish Ragstone ), which was brought across the Thames from Kent , supplemented by quartz rock from the Isle of Wight . The original Pierre de Caen cladding was almost completely replaced by Portland Stone in the 17th century . The round tower in the northeast was given a new facade in 1914, including a tower clock from the 19th century that was removed.
St. John's Chapel has one of the most remarkable interiors of Norman architecture in the United Kingdom. The barrel vault in the nave is one of the few of its kind in England with cross vaults in the aisles and above them with galleries that are barrel vaulted like the main nave. Aisles and galleries also surround the choir . After the chapel was used as an archive after the Reformation , Anthony Salvin rebuilt it in a prayer room in the 19th century.
main building
Internally, each floor of the White Tower is divided into three large sections. The tower originally had a ground floor, above which there were two residential floors. Today the White Tower has five floors, with the entrance on the first floor and the ground floor not accessible from the outside. Originally, the tower could only be reached via a wooden staircase that could be removed in case of danger. Later this was replaced by more permanent entrances, since 1973 the entrance can be reached again by a wooden staircase on the first floor, which comes close to the state of the 11th century. The stairs inside the building are to the northeast, at the opposite end of the entrance. From the second floor there are smaller staircases in the northwest and southwest. In the 14th century, a staircase was added that was built in the southern wall and has direct access to the chapel. Mainly the streams of tourists inside the White Tower are funneled through these stairs.
The second floor originally consisted of two floors with a gallery. Later in history, the upper part became a fully developed third floor. That makes the tower 92 feet high today.
The walls are 3.4 meters (in the upper area) up to 4.6 meters (near the ground) thick. There are windows in the upper part of the tower. These have been in place since construction began, but were enlarged again by Christopher Wren in the 17th century and redesigned again in the 18th century. The restoration by Anthony Salvin , which brought many alterations in the tower back to a medieval state, spared these windows. Two pairs of double windows of Norman construction under an arch can still be seen in the upper western part on the south side of the White Tower. Typical of the Norman architecture is the location of two fireplaces on the first floor, which are located in the walls, and the arrangement of toilets next to the stairs.
On the first floor there was a well that reached twelve meters deep. This floor was originally primarily used as a storage room. The Tower constable and the guards probably lived on the first floor . The great hall was presumably mainly used to take meals, as well as to sleep the house servants. The king's sleeping quarters were on the second floor. Only from there was access to the chapel.
use
Although the White Tower was one of the largest buildings in the British Isles at the time of construction, it soon turned out to be too small for the intended use. Already from the time of Henry II in the late 12th century there are references to another royal residence on the fortress grounds.
The White Tower was used as a prison in the 13th century when Edward I locked up to 700 Jews in a cellar under the White Tower. This was done on the charge of coin cutting. Only a few years later, all Jews were expelled from England.
There is a single cell 10 by 8 feet in the White Tower itself. According to legend, Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in her. Historic graffiti on the walls indicate prisoners Robert Rudston, Thomas Fane and Thomas Culpeper who ended up at the White Tower for their participation in the Thomas Wyatt rebellion . The only successful attack on the Tower of London in 1381 led the rebel leader Wat Tyler to the chapel of the White Tower, where he roused the chaplain.
Until the time of Elizabeth I , the royal household regularly used the chapel for their actual purposes. In addition to church services and prayers, the body of Henry VI was located here in 1471 . laid out after he was murdered in Wakefield Tower , also in the fortress. Since the time of Charles II in the 17th century, the kings stored state papers there. It was not until the Public Record Office was founded in 1857 that these papers moved from the chapel in the White Tower to an archive building.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the White Tower served as the arsenal of the troops in the city. When the Great Fire moved from London towards the Tower, several hundred barrels of gunpowder were stored in the building. However, before the fire could penetrate to the White Tower, the wind direction changed.
Since the mid-19th century, the White Tower has mainly housed the Royal Armories exhibition, which includes the armor of Henry VIII and other British kings. After the Royal Armories opened its own museum in Leeds in 1996 , the exhibition in the Tower underwent a significant reorganization, and today it mainly covers a few particularly spectacular pieces. The Royal Armories exhibitions are complemented by an exhibition on the history of the Towers of London. Access is now via a wooden staircase on the south side of the building.
Remarks
- ↑ Historic Royal Palaces - Tower of London: The Normans. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 17, 2015 ; accessed on April 15, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Simon Bradley, Nikolaus Pevsner: London 1, The city of London, 1997, London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-071092-2 , p. 365
- ^ John Steane: The archeology of medieval England and Wales Taylor & Francis, 1985 ISBN 0-7099-2385-6 , p. 8
- ^ A b c d e John Steane: The archeology of medieval England and Wales. Taylor & Francis, 1985 ISBN 0-7099-2385-6 , p. 9
- ↑ a b c d e Catholic London Gracewing Publishing, 1988 ISBN 0-85244-143-6 , p. 25
- ^ John Steane: The archeology of medieval England and Wales Taylor & Francis, 1985 ISBN 0-7099-2385-6 , p. 11
- ^ John Wittich: Catholic London Gracewing Publishing, 1988 ISBN 0-85244-143-6 , p. 18
Web links
- Description at Camelot International (English)
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 28.8 " N , 0 ° 4 ′ 34" W.