A Walk round Tower Hill—The Moat—The Outward Ballium—The Legge and Brass Mount Batteries—Develin, Well, Cradle, and St. Thomas’s Towers—Traitors’ Gate—The Inner Ward, its Shape—Bell, Beauchamp, Devereux—Towers on the West; Flint, Bowyer, Brick, Martin, on the North; Constable, Broad Arrow on the East; Lanthorn, Wakefield and Bloody on the South—The Great Keep, its Construction—The Chapel—Armoury—Little Ease—The Ancient Palace, now removed—Church of St. Peter ad Vincula—The King’s House—Officers of the Tower—The Yeomen of the Guard.

Here we may conveniently pause; the building is substantially completed, the great keep, the two enclosures, the Inner and Outer Ballium. Subsequent changes are all within these, and we shall have occasion to notice them at later dates, but now that we have seen the fortress completed, and used, partly as a Royal residence, partly as a State Prison, we will survey the whole in detail. And I ask attention to the Plan opposite p. 104, which will make each point clear. I propose, then, first to take a walk round the outside and start from the bottom of Tower Hill by the main entrance, where the visitors are busy buying their tickets of admission. The modern building where they are doing this is the site of the old Lion Tower. Facing us is the Middle Tower, the gateway which leads over the Moat into the fortress itself. But as I am keeping outside I pass this and ascend the hill. To-day the whole of the bank of the Moat on the western and northern side is laid out as a flower garden, and the many seats among the trees are well occupied with loungers, mostly poor, some asleep and some reading the newspaper. The Moat, which is as old as the Tower itself, was deepened by Bishop Longchamp while he held the place for Richard I, and again by Henry III, the water of course being supplied from the Thames, which flowed in at what we call Traitors’ Gate. Its greatest width is about a hundred feet. It is said that bathing in it in the days of the Plantagenets was a capital offence, but some one suggests that this simply means that it was so unsanitary as to be likely to prove fatal. There can be no doubt that the water splashing upon the walls and bastions added greatly to the picturesqueness; you see that in all the old pictures, but the changes of Time put aside its usefulness, and after eight centuries of its ebb and flow, the Duke of Wellington, when he was Constable, had it filled up to its present level and the communication with the river cut off. So now we look down upon a smooth level, on the west side gravelled, a place for recreation, and sometimes also a drying-ground of the Tower laundry. On the other sides, when we get to them, we see great portions laid down for garden ground. On the other side of the Moat is the Outward Wall, built by Henry III. Surveying it from this western side we see first the Byward Tower, which, as a glance at the plan will show, is opposite the Middle Tower, and forms the land entrance into the fortress. On the opposite end of this western side is the “drum bastion,” segment of a circle about 80 feet diameter, called Legge’s Mount Battery, probably after George Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, who had charge of it in the seventeenth century.

Turning eastward, and surveying the north side, we observe that this is not, like the western, a straight line, but an obtuse angle, which is bounded on the east by the Brass Mount, probably so called because brass cannon were mounted on it. At the bend is the North Bastion, a modern erection containing three tiers of casements, each pierced for five guns. At the north-east we leave the side of the Moat, and passing up through the gardens emerge opposite the Mint into the open road, which leads over that wonderful achievement of modern engineering, the Tower Bridge. But as our present business is not with it, we go down a flight of steps into Little Tower Street, on a level with the Thames. The wall on the eastern side is quite straight; and so we pass to the eastern end of the river front. This, as being the most exposed and also having the moat narrower, is fortified with five regular towers, the Develin, Well, Cradle, St. Thomas’s and Byward Towers. The Develin (temp. Henry III) formerly led into the precincts of St. Katharine’s. Till lately it was used as a powder magazine. The Cradle Tower is in front of what were the royal apartments, and was a gate specially for the convenience of royalty. There was in those days a portcullis, and a hoist or lift by which a boat could be lifted from the river to the level of the gateway. Hence the name “cradle,” a movable bed.

Next we come to St. Thomas’s Tower, almost always called now Traitors’ Gate, from its ancient function. It was the water-gate of the Tower, and commanded the communication between the Thames and the Moat. It is in fact a barbican, probably unique, placed astride upon the Moat, which was here about 40 feet broad, and perforated by a passage leading from the river. The original name was the Watergate; “Traitors’ Gate” dates from the time of Queen Elizabeth. Independently of its historical associations it is really a wonderful structure, a magnificent arch, 62 feet span, with no key-stone, the stones of the two rows of the arch fitted together with perfect accuracy. The state prisoners were brought down the river in the government barge, conveyed beneath this arch to the flight of steps, by which they ascended to the gateway of the Inner Ward. Of course, like the rest of the Moat, the bed is now dry and the river walled out, but there, under the arch, are still the massive folding trellised gates, as well as the steps, the latter partially renovated, no doubt, but unmistakably showing some of the old ones which so many feet have trod. We think of the men, not only brought in as prisoners, but carried forth again to Westminster Hall for trial, and brought back so often under sentence of death, with the edge of the axe turned towards them. Not the Roman Capitol, nor the Römer of Frankfurt, nor the Bridge of Sighs at Venice can count such a list of names as Traitors’ Gate. St. Thomas’s Tower was built by Henry III, and named by him after St. Thomas of Canterbury. There is an old piscina showing that it once contained a chapel. Passing it we come along the Wharf to our starting-point, the Middle Tower, and so have completed the walk round the outside.

And now starting from the Middle Tower and crossing a stone bridge over the Moat, which replaces a wooden drawbridge which gave entrance of old, but has been withdrawn now that there is no longer need of it, we are in the Inner Ward, and I shall do with this as with the Outer, and first walk round it on the outside. It is enclosed within a curtain wall, having twelve mural towers and a gatehouse. Its longest side faces the river, the east and west sides incline inwards, so that the north face is narrower than the base, and like the corresponding wall in the outer ballium, is broken by an obtuse angle, having like that a central salient. When we get to the inside we shall find that this Inner Ward is on a higher level than the Outer, some 15 or 20 feet. This may be partially owing to the earth excavated by Longchamp when the ditch was made being thrown up here. There is a clear passage between the Inner and Outer Ward, to which the ordinary visitor is not admitted. It is known as “The Casemates.” We first, by the courtesy of the authorities, walk round this and note the semicircles of the towers: on the west side, the Bell, Beauchamp and Devereux; on the north, Flint, Bowyer, Brick, Martin; on the east, Constable, Broad Arrow, Salt; on the south, Lanthorn, Wakefield, Bloody. Most of these will be noticed in turn. This passage round, which is now quite open, was formerly filled up with houses, warders’ residences and storehouses, which were removed in 1867. There are doorways along it into the outer wall, in which are lodgings for officials and chambers for stores. And now we make a yet further move, and pass within the wall, and so are in the heart of the Tower itself. The original entrance was through the Bloody Tower; it is so now for one division of visitors, but the Wakefield is made another entrance. Within, naturally, the prominent object in view as in historical interest is the Keep, the great White Tower of William the Conqueror. It stands on sloping ground, so that the north side basement is 25 feet higher than the south; quadrangular, 107 feet north and south by 118 east and west. The two western angles are square; that on the north-east has a round stone turret; the south wall terminates eastward in a bold half-round bow, marking the apse of the chapel. This keep is 90 feet high, composed of three floors, or four stages. The basement is below ground on the north, and on the ground level on the south. The walls are from 12 to 15 feet thick. The internal area is divided by a wall 10 feet thick, which rises from bottom to top, and so makes a separate smaller western and larger eastern portion. This last is again subdivided into two by another wall running east and west. The vault or subcrypt of the chapel is known in Tower phrase as “Little Ease.” We shall have it hereafter. On the first floor is the crypt and the upper storeroom. On the second floor is St. John’s Chapel, nave and aisle, and the Lower Armoury; on the third floor the chapel triforium and the Upper Armoury, the ancient Council Chamber, or “state floor.”