The Tower of London

The Tower of London: A Landmark Alive With History The Tower of London is one of the most famous and visited historic monuments in the world. For some people it conjures up images of Norman architecture and towering battlements, but most associate it with arms and armour, ravens, the Crown Jewels, Yeoman Warders, imprisonment, death and ghostly apparitions. But this does not do it justice: the history of the Tower and its buildings is a vast, fascinating and complex subject, intertwined with the history of the country of England, its government, its kings and queens, and its people and institutions. The castle's first four centuries, during the Middle Ages, saw the development of the layout of buildings that we know today and its peak as a great fortress and use as a royal residence. From the late 15th century onwards the Tower's role as a stronghold declined but the importance of the activities and institutions it fostered greatly increased. In modern times, the landmark has become not only a tourist museum but also a working example of lives and times gone past. The history of the Tower of London begins in 1066, but the location was determined by buildings put up under the Romans, rulers of Britain from AD 43 to 410. During the second half of the 2nd century the future site of the castle was built over, as shown by the foundations of Roman buildings revealed beside and underneath William the Conqueror's White Tower. It was also in this century that some features of the city's modern street layout were first established including the route of Great Tower Street which was later to influence the sitting of the castle's early entrances. In about AD 200 the entire landward side of the city was enclosed by a massive defensive wall, part of which formed the fortress' eastern rampart up to the 1240s. In about AD 250 a wall was also built along the riverside, probably in response to the new threat of seaborne attack by the Saxons. The Roman armies