Off With Her Head

Saturday morning started out bright and sunny, and the 4 of us set out to visit my most anticipated site – the Tower Of London. Back when I was in high school and visited London, the tower was closed for renovations and thus we could not visit. In addition, all of the Tubes were heavily advertising a special exhibit in honor of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the reign of my favorite monarch, Henry VIII.

At Kevin’s wonderful suggestion, we started our visit off with a 1 hour tour from one of the Yeoman Warder (commonly called Beefeaters) as he told a bit about the history of key buildings. I highly recommend the (free) tour to any visitors of the Tower as you can obtain tons of really interesting information without looking like an idiot as you wander around with those stupid headset tours. On a side note, Mumsy was incredibly anxious to figure out why they were called Beefeaters. I did a little research online and while there was no specific reason, one of the most common hypothesis was that they were rationed quite a bit of meat in order to keep them in their top physical form and enable them to properly guard the Crown Jewels and any prisoners being held there. At a time when meat was a luxury, this could have set them apart from other people and given them their nickname.

The first building on the site that is now know as the Tower of London was the White Tower, built by William the Conqueror in 1078. This tower was added to over time until two concentric rings surrounded by a (now filled in) moat existed.

While the architectural history of buildings always fascinates me, the part that most excited me was the fact that a ton of really crucial events in history occured on the very spot. It was here in 1483 that the sons of Edward IV disappeared, murdered by a still unknown person. My favorite monarch had 1/3 of his wives (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard) beheaded, along with the mother of his advisary Reginald Pole. After his death, a relative of his 2nd wife Anne Boleyn laid claim to the throne and was later executed here for her father’s scheming attempts to overthrow the current monarch. The last execution to take place at the tower occured in 1941 during WWII.

Entering the Tower

Tower from Tower Bridge

The Inner Courtyard

The Tower Ravens – they’ve had at least 6 ravens for centuries. Legend has it that if the ravens leave, the White Tower, London, and the entire monarchy will fall.

The Henry VIII exhibit was well worth the crowd – a collection of all his different suits of armor. They even had a nice information card with each suit of armor giving his weight, waist and chest measurements so you could track his rapidly increasing obesity as he got older and his jousting wound festered more and more, preventing him from moving and exercising. As with everything good in London – NO PICTURES. But once again – a few canned images.

The incredible growing King

The tower took over half a day. By the time I was dragged out of there (mentally kicking and screaming) we decided to visit the one thing Kevin really wanted to do – Tower Bridge. Being an engineer, he just had to know how the bridge works. (Ask him for a detailed description. I have no idea how it works other than a counterweight makes it easier for the bridge to swing up.) While I initially groaned, it really was rather neat. You climb the million stairs (okay, not that many, but it was alot) to the top where the exhibit talks about the discarded designs for a bridge to help ease the burden of London Bridge and the design as we see it today. Right away I learned something I hadn’t known before. The straight part of the bridge connecting the two towers at the top was designed to be a walkway for pedestrians so they could still get across when the bridge was up. The exhibit continued across the former pedestrian pathway and down to the inner workings of the bridge. While the bridge is no longer driven by steam, the engine rooms were open and the machinery still in place. I think if my Dad ever came to visit, I would take him there because he would like it as much as Kevin did.

Kevin has to touch EVERYTHING

Still to come – Hyde Park, Ulverston and Windermere (aka the world’s worst luck). I am running very behind on blogging due to the A590 road closure that caused us to not get home until 9 pm tonight.