APPENDIX IV
Since the time when the late Prince Consort interested himself in the restoration and preservation of the Tower, the Commissioners of Works and Public Buildings have cleared away, from time to time, all useless and modern portions which obscured certain parts of the ancient fabric. This work was actually begun in the lifetime of the Prince Consort, under the superintendence of Mr Salvin, who still continues to be consulted on all the more important restorations. The works are now under the superintendence of Mr John Taylor, the Surveyor to the Commissioners, who is aided by Major-General Milman, Major of the Tower and the resident military commander, all designs being submitted to the Sovereign before being carried into execution. The various restorations, especially those of the Beauchamp Tower and St Peter’s Chapel, have been described in the body of this work.
During the year, a range of buildings which stood against the east side of the White Tower, and believed to have been built in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, were pulled down, and it was found that the outer walls were of the period generally assigned to the building, but that the inner or west wall was of brick. This building, which extended on the south side from the south-east turret of the White Tower to what was formerly the Wardrobe Tower, and thence in a north-westerly direction with a return wall to the north-east turret of the White Tower,—had been so altered and patched that it no longer possessed any architectural or antiquarian interest, and was entirely removed, except those portions of the south walls and the ruins of the Wardrobe Tower, which form the north wall of the Tower Armoury, erected in 1826.
Whilst this work of demolishing was being carried out, an interesting discovery was made, Roman tiles and mortar being found, worked up into the materials of which these walls were built. At the south-east corner, and adjoining the remains of the Wardrobe Tower, a portion of Roman wall was disclosed, having three courses of bonded tiles showing above the surface of the débris. This piece of wall is in a direct westerly line with the old city wall, shown in a plan of the Tower made in 1597, the demolished buildings likewise appearing on this plan, which can be seen in the office of the Commissioners of Works. Two inferences are possible from the discovery of this Roman work; either it is part of the old city wall or the remains of a Roman building, and if it is satisfactorily proved to be Roman, it will practically settle the contested point as to whether there was ever a Roman fortress on the site of the White Tower or not. Holinshed, in the third Book of his history of England, quoting both Leyland and Fabyan, says, that Belins, who began to reign conjointly with Brennus as King of Britain, which was “about the seventh year of Artaxerxes, the seventh king of the Persians, builded a haven with a gate within the city of Troinovant, now called London. This gate was long after called Belins gate, and at length, by corruption of language, Billingsgate. He builded also a castle westward from this gate (as some have written) which was long time likewise called Belins Castell, and is the same which we now call the Tower of London.” It was pointed out in the first volume of this work that Fitzstephen declared the White Tower to have been built by Julius Cæsar, and that the mortar used in the building was “tempered with the blood of beasts,” but the Roman habit of mixing powdered tiles with their mortar, may have given rise to this theory. Stowe, in his survey of London about 1076, says, that William the Conqueror caused the present White Tower to be erected at the south-east angle of the city wall, which would be the actual spot where the fragment of the recently discovered Roman wall now stands.
On removing the southern wall of this building, it was found that it was built up to, and not bonded into the south-east turret of the White Tower, which forms the apse of St John’s Chapel. When it was taken down, the original stone-work of the White Tower was laid bare. It is quite honeycombed by age, Sir Christopher Wren having, of course, been unable to reface it as he did the exposed portions of the Tower.
The Cradle Tower, which is the third tower on the southern side of the outer Ballium wall, the others being the Develin and the Well Towers, was opened out and restored in the year 1878. Before its restoration, the southern wall was closed up, the only apertures being two loopholes. There was nothing to indicate that it ever had any connection with the moat, and the only access to the interior was on the north side, within the Ballium wall. It was used as a gunpowder store, and was only one storey in height, no trace remaining of the second storey which originally existed. The first step taken was to remove the whole of the masonry which had been built up against the Tower; this disclosed the old front as well as an arch on the south side. The return walls extended ten feet, and were built with their southern face in the moat, having two half arches turned against the moat wall, and when the masonry blocking up the arch in the south wall and these two half arches was removed, it at once became evident that formerly the water in the moat had flowed through the half arches and across the centre arch. By clearing away this masonry the wall of the moat itself was disclosed, and was found to be of an earlier date than the architecture of the Tower itself. On the ground floor there is a chamber with a finely groined roof of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The following is the actual restoration done to the Cradle Tower. The wall built up in the moat under the centre arch and under the two half-turned arches has been cleared away, and the outer walls have all been restored to their original condition. An additional storey and turret have been erected on the same plan as the old building. The corbels in the groined roof of the ground floor chamber, which were broken off, have been replaced by new ones copied from a single corbel that remained. A wooden grating, after the pattern of an old doorway in the Byward Tower, has been fitted to the central arch, whilst the space between that arch and the moat has been boarded over.
A further discovery was made during the restoration of this tower. In the space between the bridge over the moat to the east of the Cradle Tower and the Well Tower, stood a modern building used as a storehouse by the Ordnance Department, and this being pulled down, excavations in its foundations, made by the Board of Works, have disclosed a brick paving and some loopholes in the outer Ballium wall, which has helped to identify this space as the site of the garden belonging to the Queen’s apartments, when the royal palace stood within the Tower walls. This palace occupied the space bounded by a line running exactly from the south angle of the White Tower to the Broad Arrow Tower, thence south along the inner Ballium wall to the Salt Tower, thence west to the Wakefield Tower, and north to the south-west angle of the White Tower. A portion of this space is now occupied by the Ordnance Stores and the Control Office. Nearly opposite to, and to the west of the Cradle Tower, and on the south side of the royal Palace, stood the Lanthorn Tower (now rebuilt). The Queen’s apartments extended from the Lanthorn Tower to the south-east angle of the White Tower, and the space recently cleared, formed the Queen’s private garden, the loopholes in the Ballium wall bounding the garden on the south side giving a view of the river.
From these discoveries it would appear that the Cradle Tower was the entrance to the Queen’s apartments from the river, and the opinion is confirmed by the fact that the inner faces of the walls on which the centre arch stands, are worked and pointed as outside facing, probably to withstand the action of the water as they would be covered when the moat was full. There is space above the arch for a portcullis and grooves in the jambs, but it is not large enough for portcullis slides. In the entrance on the north or land side, however, both the space and grooves show that there was a portcullis there, and the chamber on the east side has no outlet, except into the centre chamber or gateway—from which it would seem that it was a guard-room for the use of a warder while on duty at the gate. And the name of the Tower strengthens this idea, “Cradle” being the old Saxon word “cradel,” meaning a movable bed. The hypothesis is that there was a hoist or lift by which a boat, after passing through the archway, was lifted on to the floor of the gateway. On comparing the groining of the chamber with the groined chamber in the Well Tower, the greater beauty of that in the Cradle Tower is at once apparent, which would point to its being part of a royal dwelling. It is also nearly opposite the site of the Lanthorn Tower, which was the entrance to the Queen’s apartments. The access to and from the Thames and the Queen’s apartments of the Palace, would be from the Cradle Tower to the moat, under St Thomas’s Tower and through Traitor’s Gate, and would be the only communication with the river. In 1641 the Cradle Tower appears to have been used as a prison, according to “A particular of the Names of the Towers and Prison Lodgings in his Majesty’s Tower of London, taken out of a paper of Mr William Franklyn, sometime Yeoman Warder, dated March 1641,” in which appears, “Cradle Tower—A prison lodging, with low gardens where the drawbridge was in former times.”
The War Office have determined to build stores on the Queen’s gardens, and consequently the loopholes in the old Ballium wall will be blocked up. The site will thus be lost for further investigation, and as the Office of Works has no power to prevent these works being carried out, all that has been exposed of one of the most interesting portions of the older part of the Tower will be lost.