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| (Tower of London with Tower Bridge in the back) |
I once went to the Tower of London on a class field trip
and learned some basic facts about the castle.
They are as follow:
The Tower of
London is one of the oldest castles in England
and was built by William the Conqueror;
it originally consisted of only the White Tower.
Like most castles in Britain,
the Tower is built over an old Roman fort.
The White Tower has four towers and
was once a royal palace.
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| (The White Tower) |
The Tower of London has a total of twenty towers.
The
Tower currently hold the Royal Jewels of England,
and was once home to the
Royal Beast,
but they were removed and placed in Regent’s Park Zoo
because they
once escaped from the castle and were running wild!
The old Norman Tower/White
Tower is beautiful with its white walls
and grand open interior on all of its
three floors.
Across the lawn from the White Tower
is the Queen’s House which is
a beautiful preserved Tudor style building,
which was originally built for
Queen Ann from Henry VIII.
Sadly she died before she saw it completed.
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| (The Queen's House) |
The Tower of London is spectacular
with its
architecture and ingenuity in how to protect it from being attacked.
The moat
that once surrounded the Tower was one of the foulest smells in the city
and
best protection for the castle because it was basically a giant toilet.
But
these little facts are not what I remember best
from my day spent at the Tower
of London.
The thing that is most memorable to me is the tour I went on
and a
very special Beefeater named Peter who led it.
When I went to the Tower of London
it was a blustery
Tuesday afternoon in October.
The sun was shining but the air was cold and
damp.
Bundled up in three layers of clothes
I went on a guided tour of the castle
given by a Beefeater.
A Beefeater is one of the Queen’s guards who lives and
works in the Tower of London.
The Beefeater that led my tour was a sweet old
man roughly in his fifties,
and he took great pride in what he was telling
everyone about the castle.
He made the whole experience one hundred times
better
with his jokes about the prisoners who were held in the Tower.
For
example he took great pity on Sir Walter Raleigh
who was once locked in the
Queen’s House with his wife for several years!
Saying that that was one of the
most horrible fates for a man,
luckily he and his wife were released but in the
mean time they had had a child.
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| (Traitors Gate where traitors of the crown, such as Ann Boleyn would have been brought through) |
Throughout the whole tour little stories like
that one were interjected
to give life and character to the place that you
were seeing.
It made the past almost feel like a wonderful area for exploration
and made me want to know more about the Tower and its past and the people
who
once lived there,
and to forget about the fact that the tips of my fingers had
gone numb.
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| (all the girls in the group with Peter the Beefeater) |
I am very grateful to Peter the Beefeater who made my visit fun and
memorable.
I recommend that if you are going to the Tower of London anytime
soon
that you go on a guided tour. It is not that difficult.
In fact if you go
to the website below
you can see all the different things that you can see and
do at the Tower of London.
Enjoy!
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