1982 Horse Guard and Tower of London (7/6/1982)

Tuesday, July 6, 1982

Breakfast down at the restaurant at 8:30, checked in for two more nights, and left on a cloudy day at 9:00 to the South Kensington Station and began using one of our London Transport Rover day passes (3.20 GBP/$5.60 for central London).

London Transport Rover day pass

Took the Piccadilly Line to Green Park and changed to the Jubilee Line to Bond Street. Found our way to Grosvenor Square and the U.S. Embassy. We avoided the visa and immigration lines and asked a guard doing the x-rays and attaché searches about tickets to attend Parliament sessions. He said they were booked through July. Back to the tube station, passing (but not under!) a man on a rickety ladder washing upper story windows. Took the Jubilee Line to the end at Charing Cross. Sue cashed a traveler’s cheque at Midland Bank in Trafalgar Square, then we made a beeline for the Horse Guard building (1751 and 1753 by John Vardy to a design by William Kent). This time there were mounted horses in the stall guard boxes.

Horse Guard Guard

We were a half hour early for the Changing of the Horse Guards, but went to get a front line spot at the fence on the Horse Parade Grounds.

Red-coated Horse Guard

At 11:00, a small company of horses with red-coated white plumed guards came out from the Horse Guard building, then a guard with a bugle on a white horse came in from St James Park to join them. During a lull, a reddish brown Rolls Royce drove through from St James Park; Queen Elizabeth? The Queen Mother?
A larger company of horses with blue-coated red-plumed riders entered from St James Park along with their own bugler.

Blue-coated Horse Guards

The two buglers had to synchronize. A little ceremony, then half the red-coats went into the Horse Guard building and a little later, some red-coats came out to join the remaining red-coats. All the red-coats trotted out to St James Park and the blue-coats went into the Horse Guard building. We followed the blue-coats in time to see a simultaneous dismount! We noticed the red-coats at the gate had been replaced with blue-coats.

Nelson's Column in Trafaglar Square

Stopped at a small grocery for lunch items and went to the Charing Cross Station for the Bakerloo Line. The tube ticket takers/pass checkers could care less when you enter a station, but when you exit they are more interested. Took the Bakerloo Line to the end since we were curious about the Elephant & Castle. Our train seemed to be one of the originals, and the station at Elephant & Castle Station also seemed to be one of the first. We had our passes checked and were herded down a corridor into a six-sided room. The doors closed and the room took us upward! Along one side of the elevator was a bench that was high off the floor so that everyone’s feet dangled.

Up at ground level we looked around and decided there was nothing special to see (it is just a major intersection and the immediate neighborhood that is called Elephant & Castle). We went back down in the tube station to take the Bakerloo Line to the Embankment Station and change to the District Line. This time we seemed to be in the newest trains with doors you could open yourself, except that usually the conductor opened them. I also noticed there appeared to be two third rails (fourth rail system of electrification). We got off at the Tower Hill Station and stopped for lunch of tuna paté and crab paté on our leftover breakfast rolls, at the Tower Hill Memorial (1928 and 1955) commemorating members of the Merchant Navy and fishing fleets who died during both World Wars. Public executions were carried out on Tower Hill. We passed pieces of medieval and Roman walls on our way to the Tower of London, actually a fortified castle, Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress (1066 with multiple expansions). We bought 3 GBP/$5.25 tickets which were taken by the Beefeaters at the isolated castle entrance. Our bags were carefully checked before we entered. Beefeaters is the popular name for the Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign's Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary. You can see why they needed a shorter nickname! At that, the nickname is not even accurate, since it was the Yoemen of the Guard who could eat as much beef as they wanted, and the Yoemen of the Guard are distinct from the Yoemen Warders.

A crowd gathered around one Beefeater standing on a wooden block.

Yoeman Warder/Beefeater guide

He had a deep booming voice, a dark beard, and an Irish accent, and he explained the Tower was a royal residence (and traditionally monarchs stayed here just before their coronation), but was so well fortified that prisoners were kept there. These prisoners were usually publicly executed up on Tower Hill by having their heads chopped off with an axe. The heads were then displayed on Tower Bridge, and the bodies were brought back to the Tower to be buried in the Chapel of St Paul ad Vincula. We were to follow the same path as the prisoners, also ending up in the chapel!
We crossed a moat and entered another gate that had a portcullis above and holes through which to pour water in case anyone set fire to the gate, or to pour hot oil if anyone tried to attack. However, there has never been need to use these holes. The bell tower at the entrance was the curfew tower, and the bell still signals when it is time for the visitors to leave. We were now between the inner and outer walls and could see one of the towers had a 3.3 m/11’ thick wall, all the better to hold prisoners. They pointed out the Queen’s private entrance from the river at Cradle Tower (1355) as we moved to Traitor’s Gate (1279) where prisoners entered through more security. Above this gate there used to be a tower, but the ghost of Thomas More haunted it and caused it to collapse! A chapel was built there to appease him. We passed under the Bloody Tower (12C) with another portcullis gate where many were bloodied, including, it is believed, the 12-year old King Edward V and his brother.

Up in the Tower Green the ravens were pointed out.

A couple of the ravens

After a great fire, only the White Tower (11C) was left standing and so all the ravens came there to feed. King Charles II wanted to exterminate them, but was told if the ravens were to leave, then the Tower would fall, and so would all of England. So the king decreed that six ravens were to remain at the Tower at all times. Still to this day, they keep at least six clipped-wing Corvus corax/Common Ravens, with one or two in reserve, and they even have a Ravenmaster. The Tower Green is where the private executions took place, including those of Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey. In one corner is the Queen’s House (1530) built for Anne of Boleyn who ended up being a prisoner there.

Queen's House

It was a prison for the well-to-do, and is now the lodging for the Keeper of the Tower. Around two sides of the Green were Tudor homes for the Beefeaters and their families.

We went in the Chapel of St Paul ad Vincula (1520) where all those killed on Tower Hill and in the Green were buried, as well as the Keepers of the Tower. Over 1500 bodies have been found, but only 35 have been identified. A plaque was found with the remains of Talbot Edwards, a Keeper of the Tower, who, when he was in his 70s, helped thwart the robbery of the Crown Jewels by a Colonel Blood. The Chapel contains the oldest organ in England and there is an empty tomb for a Keeper who subsequently moved away.
One is eligible to become a Beefeater after 20 years in the military with a good conduct medal. You are put on a waiting list until one of the 37 positions opens. Their sole job is the upkeep of the tower, guiding visitors, answering questions, and posing for pictures!

After the Chapel, we went to the Jewel House and waited in line to buy the 60 pence/$1 ticket to see the Royal Treasury. Wow! Crowns of past queens, the Prince of Wales, the Queen Mother. The Coronation and Imperial Crowns, and all the coronation paraphernalia, including a sceptre with the Star of Africa (530 carats, just a little smaller than my fist), the largest clear cut diamond in the world! There were gold flagons, alms dishes, communion plates, and salt cellars (since salt was once more valuable than gold). A Maundy plate with which the Queen distributes purses of money to needy recipients, one for each year of the queen’s life, on Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday).

The floor above the vault with the Crown Jewels, there were displays of the plain old treasury of silver dinnerware, coronation coins, coronation robes, and the accoutrements for each order of knights. Next door was a display of armory, including elephant armor from the Orient. The intricate designs on the guns and cannons were amazing. Next was the heraldry museum and gift shop. We saw the horn of a unicorn (narwhale tusk). In the back we waited in line to see the torture museum in Bowyer Tower. It was tiny with a picture of a rack, examples of cells, a thumb-screw, a gibbet (to hold a dead body for display), a criminal catcher (like a shepherd’s crook), and the axe and block used in the last public execution on Tower Hill.

Yoeman Warder/Beefeater

We circled round the Regimental Museum to enter the White Tower through its original and only door.

White Tower

We could look down on the yard of the ravens. The White Tower is the oldest structure at the Tower of London and was a royal residence. Now it houses an armory museum, from military to sport. Saw all kinds of medieval weaponry and armor, even that of King Henry VIII who was well protected at his most important parts! There was a nice small chapel where King Henry VIII laid in state and Lady Jane Grey prayed during the 9 days of her reign without being crowned. After three floors of the musuem we were ready to sit and wait for the changing of the guard within the Tower of London. It was amusing as well for the participants, since they smiled, too, and the former statue marched off stiff-legged. That was at 16:00 and we had been here for over two hours and still had more to see!

At the Bloody Tower we saw the nicely furnished prison apartment of Sir Walter Raleigh and his family. We found a back entrance to Wakefield Tower to see where King Henry VI was killed while at prayer. Ended up at the ravens’ pens, where each is named and info is given as to when and where they were found. The Historic Gallery synopsized the history of the Tower of London as it progressed from the White Tower to what it is today. We left at 17:00 on the river-side and had a double chocolate ice cream bar.

Across the Thames was the battleship, HMS Belfast, now a museum.

HMS Belfast

We viewed the Tower Bridge, and walked across, and bounced along with the drawbridge as heavy traffic passed.

Tower Bridge

View of the Tower of London

Returned back across the bridge to Tower Hill, and took the tube to Victoria Station, where we went to a Burger King for a cheap dinner. I had a fish sandwich, fries and chocolate shale for 1.80 GBP/$3. We returned to the hostel by tube and the South Kensington Station. Sat in the courtyard to catch up on the journal. Some people were singing along with a guitar, and someone was throwing money at them from above. At 22:30 it was lights out.