The Tower of London.
A Royal palace...
and mighty fortress.
Fire!
Infamo
place of execution
..and torture.
With unprecedented access,
in our search for the untold story,
we'll go deep into the archives...
..and uncover extraordinary relics and rituals hidden for centuries.
The Cere
the oldest military ceremony anywhere in the world.
Who comes there?
Queen Elizabeth's keys!
And we'll unravel the secrets of one of Britain's most iconic landmarks.
This program is made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers More than 1,000 years old
and still st
on the banks of London's great River Thames.
The Tower of London,
England's most formidable
royal fortress.
It holds centuries of secrets locked within its 15-foot thick, solid stone walls.
For these ancient fortifications,
set in grounds the same size as those of the White House,
are far more than just a castle keeping London safe from her enemies.
Over the centuries, the Tower has been, in turn,
the priv
of kings and queens...
..a secure strongroom for the monarchs' most precious possessions -
the Crow
of England...
..a near-inescapable prison,
incarcerating all who angered the sovereign ruler of the day...
..a fearful place of execution,
infamous for bloody beheadings and the cruel torture of its victims.
And in recent centuries, it has become a popular tourist attraction,
fascinating millions
of visitors each year.
Every era of its history...
..adds to the store of secrets hidden from public view.
Still to this day, Her Majesty the Queen of England's personal guards
perform historic ceremonies that the tourists never see.
With unique access to the life of this extraordinary castle,
we go behind the scenes to uncover the secr
of the Tower of London.
The story of the Tower all begins in the 11th century.
In 1066, England suffers the only foreign invasion ever to overcome her island defenses.
The new ruler, William the Conqueror,
constructs a fortress in the heart of the capital city -
designed to shock and awe any rebellious Londoners and deter foreign invasion.
His colossal status symbol towers 90 foot high
above the deepest inland port on the river...
..commanding the key crossing-place at this hub of vital trading routes.
By 1100, the White Tower is complete:
a vast mon
over London for centuries.
Bridget Clifford, the Tower's historian,
knows the secrets of the White Tower's birth.
(BRIDGET) William built the Tower here to make a statement.
He was a conqueror.
It's sitting on the edge of the city of London,
so it's standing over the native population.
Behind us today, you can
how everything's grown up.
But that would have been flat marshlands.
So you could be seen from a distance from the south of the river.
Even though now the White Tower is dwarfed, rather,
when everybody els
in one-or-two-story houses,
this was an enormous great stone building which represented power.
In the 13th century, the White Tower receives reinforcements.
Two new sets of
fortified with 21 additional towers,
costing millions of dollars.
The moat is extended
and flooded with water from the River Thames...
..creating a formidable stronghold -
a seemingly impregnable defensive layout surviving to this day.
The site spans 18 acres.
And before you've even got through the gates,
there are surprises hidden in the most unusual places.
In the 1930s, archaeologists excavating the 100-foot wide moat
come across bones from ancient menagerie.
Buried here are th
of a leopard, 19 dogs
and thes
lion skulls.
Sally Dixon Smith discovers that these were far from ordinary lions.
They're a type of lion that is extinct in the wild called a Barbary Lion.
In fact, the lions you see today in Trafalgar Square are also Barbary Lions.
They've been able to carbon date them and we know these
are the medieval lions,
the ones that were here in the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries.
It's now known the lions were part of a Royal Menagerie -
an ass
the Kings and Queens of England never really wanted:
gifts from well-intentioned foreign monarchs.
In the Menagerie's heyday, the Tower houses 60 species -
the start of what is to be six centuries of attracting the tourists.
The first creatures arrive in 1235 - the lions.
Just 20 years later, an even greater sensation:
an African elephant as a trophy from the Crusades.
Well-meaning keepers make him
drink a gallon of red wine a day to 'keep out the cold.'
but very short life.
The Norwegian 'white bear' is muzzled and chained up -
although he's walked on a stout cord to fish for By the
admission cost 'three half pence'
but there is a discount scheme.
Bringing a cat or dog to feed to the hungry lions
earns you a free peek at the spectacle of the king's exotic animal inmates.
They were kept right here at the Western entrance on the city side of the castle.
This has always been th
to the Tower of London.
As you can see, people are flooding into the Tower, as they have done for centuries.
To get in, y
past all the lions, the bears, the tigers.
They even had kangaroos - all sorts of animals from all around the world
were kept here, really, as royal status symbols and
as curiosities to visit.
There was nothing very scientific at all abou
way these animals were kept.
They were purely for spectacle and bragging rights.
Not all goes well - animals escape, atta
and even visitors.
Finally, the unruly beasts get their marching orders in 1832.
Fixtures and fittings sold at auction.
Today, visitors don't see a zoo.
But they do pass under the historic 13th-century Byward Tower -
none
houses one of the fortress's rarest, secret treasures:
a work of art so fragile that few people ever see this room.
It lies hidden for more than 500 years...
..until renovation work uncovers something extraordinary.
Removing layers of modern paint from around a Tudor fireplace,
builders reveal the Tower of London's sole surviving medieval interior.
One woman is responsible for the care of this historic artwork: Jane Spooner.
(JANE) This is a very rare survival indeed.
Because of our damp climate, a lot of these wall paintings,
most have gone or have been covered up.
The 14th-century mural tells of Christ's crucifixion,
and in its day, must have cost a fortune to paint.
Scientific analysis revealed something exceptional
about the pigments used by the artist.
(JANE) There are some organic pigments,
so there's red lac, which is made from the secretions of an Indian insect.
So it was very expensive pigment.
Decades of detective work are revealing the mural's hidden code:
the subject conveys a subliminal, crime-prevention message of shining morality.
And the reason it's here?
Old plans reveal that from as early as 1278, and for six centuries more,
this part of the T
houses the Royal Mint.
The mural is a warning to God-fearing
treasury officials.
This is the place where merchants would bring bullion in,
sell it to the Crown,
and it would be looked at and tested and valued.
Then the Crown would buy it and turn it
the King's coin.
There was a great deal of potential for fraud,
for stealing material, for valuing things wrongly.
The message is clear: 'God sees all.
Thieves and fraudsters will never escape the d
and fires of hell.'
Ironically, by 1526, it is the King himself who steals from everybody else,
to fund England's wars, He begins replacing precious metal in the nation's coins with much cheaper copper -
pocketing the valuable gold and silver.
This is infamously much married, King Henry VIII.
He rules England as absolute monarch, with absolute power,
between 1509 and 1547.
And it was his desire to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon,
that signals the
the Tower becoming a dark and macabre backdrop
to a story of cruelty and treachery.
And religious life in England is split apart.
When the Pope re
to sanction the end of King Henry's marriage,
He
the Catholic faith,
declaring himself supreme head of a new Church of England.
Amid years of turmoil, all who question the divorce
are thrown into his deepest dungeons.
This country-cottage facade lies within the Tower walls.
It h
secret chamber -
an i
to which Henry sinks in his quest to remarry.
The only access is via The Queen's House,
currently the private residenc
the Governor of the Tower.
ever pass through this door.
On
Sally Dixon Smith have the exclusive access.
This is the now deserted room once housing Sir Thomas More,
one of Henry's chief ministers.
He refuses to accept the King as Head of the Church.
So he is imprisoned here for more than a year.
Henry sees More's actions as betrayal and treachery.
But he's hoping a humane incarceration might encourage a change of heart.
Prison conditions at the Tower do vary enormously.
People have this vision of sort of dungeons and rats
and certainly for some people, that's true.
It really does depen
on your social status.
If you had nothing, this could be a horrible, horrible, cold nasty place.
If you can pay for it, you can live well here.
More's imprisonment is, at first, a relatively comfortable affair.
Exact details of how this now-bare chamber might once have looked no longer exist.
But it's believed that such a high-class prisoner as More
can enjoy rugs on the cold floor, tapestries on the walls,
furniture, candles,
books and even his own domestic servant.
Within these walls, he gets visits from his family,
bringing food and fine wines.
Over
his imprisonment, which was over a year,
things get more and more stressful, if you like, between him and the King.
It's clear Thomas
isn't changing his mind.
And so they really start to clamp down on him.
They take away his books, they take away his writing materials,
they take away access to his family.
They're really putting the pressure on.
More stuck to his principles,
kept his integrity but finally lost his life in July 1535...
..his severed head displayed on Traitors' Gate.
With Sir Thomas More's head on a spike,
King Henry now
total power
over England's political and religious establishment.
And his new supremacy deserves the most opulent of palaces.
The unbounded extravagance of his spending spree consumes millions of dollars...
royal, luxury lodgings for his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
The domes that you can se
the White Tower today,
these beautiful onion cupolas,
were actually put on by Henry VIII
as one of the statements about the White Tower,
making it even more visible for Anne's coronation.
600 years ago, Anne arrives at the Tower palace
for a fitting ceremony to crown her Queen of England.
(SALLY) It's the culmination of so many hopes, so much expectation.
In fact, she's six months' pregnant
with what they hope will be the heir to the throne, the long-awaited son.
This is the heyday for the Tower as a Royal residence.
But all was about to change.
For Anne Boleyn, the Tower is the place of her greatest triumph
but also her moments of greatest despair.
Anne fails to produce a male heir for Henry,
so she becomes
Tower's most tragic victims.
May 2nd, 1536,
just three years after her glorious coronation,
she returns al
the River Thames.
Henry conspires to have her accused of adultery...
with five men
one of them, her brother.
(SALLY) You couldn't fall much further from being a queen to being a traitor.
Anne is to be the first queen to be executed at the Tower.
Her death comes here on Tower Green -
away from public gaze.
Its an incredibly moving story and something that really grips you.
I think it's this mixture of something incredibly personal
being so political and having such
on the country.
But it's a story that you can relate to and you can sort of feel that fear.
May 19th, 1536.
The bell rin
as is done before and after each execution.
(Bell rings)
The portcullis lowers.
Execution is then a notoriously bloody and often botched business.
But in an act of 'humanity', Henry arranges for an expert swordsman
to be brought from France for the job.
His kindliness is rewarded.
In one
Anne's head parts company with her neck.
But that is not the end of Anne's story.
300 years later, and just a stone's throw from her p
builders installing underground heating unearth a shocking sight.
1,500 skeletal remains,
found here at the Cha
St. Peter ad Vincula.
Most of the bodies are unidentifiable.
And so they are reinterred in a crypt sealed behind this door.
But one of them is believed to be the ill-fated Queen.
This shield on the altar marks the spot
where her bones were discovered and then reburied,
the final resting pl
of Anne Boleyn.
Anne's head is chopped off within the Tower walls -
a 'privilege' reserved for royalty.
Most executions
150 yards away at this public site.
125 heads rolled here.
We're standing on Tower Hill,
absolutely in the middle of the 21st century,
you can hear all of the traffic going past.
The biggest public executions draw thousands of people.
There would have been quite a holiday atmosphere.
Not for the person being executed, obviously.
The sentence most closely associated with the Tower is beheading by axe -
carried out by a masked executioner.
would exchange hands,
in the hope that a clean execution would be granted.
The block with its two curved cut-outs
is designed to hold the victim's head and upper chest,
and expose their neck.
The prisoner would indicate when they were ready.
And the executioner would fulfill his task...
than others.
There are not so
executions that somebody is expert in it.
The tales are that quite was very drunk.
It wasn't exactly a high-status job to hold.
There are tales where it was se
take the head from the body.
After the head is displayed to the crowd,
it is carried through the streets of London
and displayed as a warning to other traitors.
In its 900-year-long history,
thousands of prisoners pass The Tower is notorious as a place of imprisonment,
of punishment, I think this is because this was used for
high-status prisoners.
Famous inmates include Princess Elizabeth,
the future Queen Elizabeth I,
as well as the
who attempts to blow up the British government with two tons of gunpowder,
and receives a fate possibly worse than death...
- (Agonized scream) - ..torture.
Re
on the most infamous
of all medieval torture devices, the rack.
And tortured further by being manacled and suspended by his wrists.
You cannot s
stretched and extended to breaking point,
as on the rack or with manacles,
for more than about 5-10 minutes wi
It's ext
and it's something that was used repeatedly on people
to gain confessions.
(Agonized scream)
Despite its very important prisoners,
the Tower is far from a maximum-security prison.
In fact, its first ever inmate, Bishop Ranulf Flambard, escaped.
He climbs down a rope dropped out of a window in the White Tower,
after
drunk on a gallon of wine.
700 years later, Lord Nithsdale makes his escape disguised as a woman.
But in the intervening years,
the Tower gets more effective as a jail.
And the Beauchamp Tower is w
are held.
This, by n
is the main state prison.
All around the Tower are vestiges of its macabre and sinister past.
Like
graffiti,
carved between the 16th and 17th centuries,
during
and political upheaval.
This Falcon engraving, the royal symbol of Anne Boleyn,
is thought to be etched by one of the men arrested alongside her.
Poignantly, the royal bird has no crown or scepter -
it stands bareheaded,
as does Anne in her last moments on Tower Green.
But not all prisoners lose their heads at the Tower.
Bridget Clifford, keeper of the Tower's history,
is still trying to piece together the story of an American prisoner
from the 18th century.
Henry Laurens was a
here in the 1780s.
He was accused of treason.
As
the American Revolution,
he is a prize catch for the British.
Here w
the York Courant.
Tuesday, October 10th, 1780.
And
of his capture at sea.
Laurens wa
to the Tower of London.
As the story goes, Laurens is greeted at the Tower gates
by the tune Yankee Doodle Dandy.
(Music piping, laughter)
This
to have lived with a Yeoman Warder and his wife.
To begin with, all he wants to do is escape.
'For sometime past, I have been frequently and
strongly tempted to make my escape from the Tower.
I might have 18 hours' start before I was missed.'
But Laurens is never treated like a common prisoner.
It's thought the English feared they could lose the war,
so went easy on this important and influential figure.
That allows visits from merchants bringing champagne and fine wines,
hoping to strike deals with what was soon to become
the brand new United States of America.
Such useful networking opportunities
persuade Laurens swiftly to abandon his breakout plans.
'I put a stop to further applications by saying
I will not attempt an escape.
The gates were opened for me to enter.
They shall be opened for me to go out of the Tower.'
And they duly were.
In 178
to a mid-Atlantic transfer.
Laurens is traded fo
a captured British lord.
Like many of the time, of being buried alive.
So
South Carolina,
there is a bizarre twist to the tale.
He leaves instructions for
his corpse to be decapitated,
just in case.
Here's somebody who escaped from the Tower with his head
but lost his head when he returned home,
which is an unusual variant on the theme.
(Military drumbeat)
Over centuries past, people faced incarceration within the Tower.
Now, instead of crowds line up to get in.
The tourist rush began in the 19th century.
By then, leisure time in England was increasing
and sightseeing was becoming a popular pastime.
The Victorians create a new 'House of Horror' fantasy guise for the Tower
to draw in day-trippers.
And all is not as it seems.
One little-known secret is that in 1885,
the Lanthorn Tower is rebuilt to make it appear more medieval...
..making the Tower akin to a Victorian version of Disneyland.
And when London needs a new river crossing,
Queen Victoria insists that it must blend in with its next-door neighbor,
the Tower of London.
Toge
attractions in this medieval theme park.
In 1880, construction begins on the new gigantic structure...
..which will become Tower Bridge.
The 11,000 ton steelwork is clad in stone,
in a faux-Gothic style, so as to maintain the fantasy illusion.
In all, the bridge costs more than $150 million in today's money.
The facade may be imitation, but the engineering is both real and remarkable.
Huge arms raise and lower the bridge span,
each using massive counterbalances, known as bascules,
and each operating much like a see-saw.
Dave Duffy is responsible for raising and lowering the bridge.
His job takes him 30 feet below into the bascule chambers.
DAVE: We're in the south bascule chamber.
The white part going across
carries approximately 400 tons of lead as a counterbalance.
So when the bridge outside goes up,
everything you see Everything you see in here is original.
Nothing's been replaced.
But then, anything
the Victorians built, they built to last.
At the time of Victorian engineering,
it was probably far in advance of anything else that anyone had ever done.
Purely just from its size, let alone the stru
and the way they did it.
The bridge is still manned 24 hours a day.
And lifted for vessels over 30 feet high.
(Ship's horn)
Bloomin' hell, should have been started a long time ago.
Right.
I've just started the hydraulic pumps up.
In each of the corners, there's two main pumps.
What I'll do
one pump at a time,
because they have 50 kilowatt motors.
If you start the who
lot together, we'll probably blackout half the city.
There's no set times for this.
You might get a whole week without a single lift,
and during the summer,
you can get anything up to 20-odd lifts in one day.
Pumps are all started.
I'll now stop the incoming traffic both north and south.
(Alarm sounds)
Lady Daphne, Tower Bridge.
Your lift is underway.
(Radio acknowledgement)
Everything now is in a set position, so I'm now raising the bridge.
I shall raise the bridge to approximately 45 degrees,
which will give the vessel ample room to maneuver.
In the bascule chamber, the 1,000 tons of counterweight
help the roadway to rise.
And the staggering feat of Victorian engineering is revealed in all its glory.
With priority given to ships,
even smaller vessels such as the Lady Daphne,
road traffic must stop and wait.
Vessel's clear of the bridge.
I'll now start to lower the bridge.
I'll stop the hydraulics and that is a bridge lift completed.
Tower Bridge is a major London landmark.
And, just as it always has done,
matches perfectly with its neighbor, the Tower of London.
(Gunshot)
The 20th century gives rise to a new challenge...
..war.
During World War II, life at the Tower changes beyond recognition.
The gates close to sightseers
and the priceless Crown
Jewels move to a secret, more secure location.
The dry moat, previously
drained for fear of disease,
become
the war effort:
an important source of food for Londoners.
15 bombs, three
and numerous incendiaries strike the Tower.
23 people are killed.
But damage to the Tower's structures is surprisingly slight.
But there is one chilling incident that would go down in history.
This ordinary-looking dining chair
betrays an extraordinary secret.
A few decades ago, it is discovered in the Tower stores.
its wooden frame
reveal its true significance in Tower history.
This i
the very last execution
ever conducted in the Tower of London.
August 15, 1941.
German spy Josef Jakobs is captured
shortly after parachuting into Britain.
Under the Treachery Act of 1940, he is convicted of espionage.
As a military officer, Jakobs is spared the usual hanging.
He is to be shot by a military firing squad.
Jakobs is taken to this firing range within the walls of the Tower.
He's blindfolded and tied to the chair,
a white dot pinned to his chest as an unmissable target.
Eight rifle shots seal his fate.
(Gunshots)
This will prove to be the last execution here.
A bloody finale to the many, equally bloody, tales of the Tower.
Today this slice of British history
is among the country's foremost tourist attractions.
Fire!
And its most celebrated inhabitants are defenders of the gates and ceremonial guardians of the Tower.
Phil Wilson is one of those Yeoman Warders,
popularly known as the beefeaters.
Yeoman Warders... beefeaters, indeed!
No one really knows why they're called 'beefeaters.'
One suggestion is that their original role as the king's personal bodyguard
entitled them to eat as much beef as they desired from the king's table.
Their full state uniforms, including a weave of gold thread,
run to $10,000.
What we're wearing today is semi-state dress.
We wear this on special oc
the Tower.
(Barks order)
The To
royal connections.
Today it's the Queen's birthday -
a popular opportunity They will fire
a 62-gun salute,
which is 21 for Her Majesty, 21 for the City of London,
and 20 for the royal palace and fortress at the Tower of London.
The Tower of London is still a self-contained community.
The 37 Yeoman Warders and their families all live onsite.
They have their own doctor,
and even an English pub,
reserved strictly for the Yeoman W
Alan Kingshott is the Chief Yeoman Warder.
He's giving us a rare gl
of this very private world.
There's my boss.
Hello, ma'am.
This is a very, very special place.
You can only come here if you've been invited
to come into the Yeoman Warders' Club.
This is not only a place for Yeoman warders to retire after a day's work,
it's also a repository of extraordinary objects.
All around t
lots of trinkets,
there's lots of plaques, loads of pictures,
and these have been given as gifts from people who have come to visit the tower.
Tower life is filled with rituals unseen by the public.
Each Y
own tankard for the secret ceremonial dinners.
There.
That's mine.
There'
Just 'cause I'm the chief, doesn't mean it gets put in a prominent position.
But there it is.
A big part of
life is giving tours of the Tower
to the hordes of visitors each day
and recounting the bloody tales of yesteryear.
A third blow came down and took the top of Scott's head off.
It was the bloodiest execution to happen on the Hill.
Hi
keeps an eye on proceedings
from his private quarters.
And he's invited us inside...
..to witness what remains an important ritual at a
even the Tower of London.
Tea?
Alan lives here with wife Pat.
- I'll go make it for you?
- Be nice.
As always.
We've been living in here for about 15 years, I think.
It's very quirky because it's an actual round tower.
They've had to put false walls in and things like that.
The Wardens of the Tower have the
of living in unique homes,
but there are rules and restrictions that go with it.
'Cause we live at the top of the tow
something like 50 stairs.
So trying to get my groceries up...
We're not allowed to have an elevator.
So it's all steps.
When I come back with my shopping, I get comments like,
'Fancy and bringing your shopping into a place like this.'
And I have to resist the urge to put them right.
You get
the hindrances
and the things that are a little bit out of the normal.
These modern-day 'prisoners' face restrictions
better suited to earlier inmates of the Tower.
Probably cold by now, dear.
We can't get out easily at night
'cause they lock all the doors at ten o'clock.
If we want to come back after midnight,
we have to book in to let them know we're coming back
otherwise we could have a problem getting back in.
The Yeomen Warders have all carried out
a minimum of 22 years service in the British military
and received a Good Conduct Medal.
The Yeoman Warder's true title is
Yeoman Warder of Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress
the Tower of London,
Yeoman of the Guard (In Extraordinary).
Pu
are unique in many respects.
You're the icon of all things British.
Roles for a Yeoman Warder has changed quite dramatically.
Initially we would have been custodians
of the prisoners that were brought here.
These prisoners were very wealthy people.
They're not common criminals.
You wouldn't have come here.
Alan and Pat's bedroom once housed VIPs.
In this case, very important prisoners.
The higher up the building you went, the more important you were in your status.
That obviously doesn't apply nowadays.
It's those that are the fittest,
that can get up the 50-odd stairs that we've got to get here.
Two Scottish Lords were held in here in 1747,
prior to their execution outside on Tower Hill.
Now, obviously
over these years
and it's been adapted now for modern-day living,
so it's our bedroom.
You
over the window.
We still have the fixings on the door, the locks.
very quietly.
You can't sneak anywhere in this place.
Alan's wife Pat has an extraordinary job.
She cares for the nation's most precious and priceless objects.
And now she's off to work,
as supervisor in the Jewel House:
Custodian of England's most prized possessions.
Bye-bye, darling.
The Crown Jewels,
a breathtaking collection of royal regalia -
in all, over 23,000 jewels.
Thei
is $32 billion,
Although their emotional and historic value is priceless.
They've been guarded here for centuries.
The most impressive piece is the Imperial State Crown...
for Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation.
It's e
3,000 rare and precious gems.
And these celebrated jewels have been on some extraordinary adventures.
In 1671 there was a big heist attempt on the Crown Jewels.
A man called Colonel Blood posed as a clergyman,
befriended the Jewel House keeper
and then essentially they mug the Jewel House keeper
and try and steal the jewels.
Blood crushes the Imperial State Crown and hides it under his cloak.
The Sceptre is attacked
with a saw,
and his comrad
the Orb down his breeches.
Just as they are about to make their getaway,
the alarm is raised and the thieves arrested.
So far so good.
That's the only real attempt there has been.
The jewels have been stored on site since the 14th century.
And the Tower's archives reveal when they first became a public attraction.
Originally there would have been jewel houses...
south of the White Tower.
You get a
the different experiences
that you have when you come to the Tower.
Of the Menagerie, the New Armouries.
And you can see, in this map of the Tower,
the Jewel House has moved to the Martin Tower there.
And it is one of the sights people come to see.
From as early as the 1660s,
the Jewel House forms one of the Tower's attractions...
and visitors can view the regalia
stored in the basement of this building.
After Blood's escapade, security is
Iron bars replace wooden ones around the regalia,
and visitors are never again allowed within touching distance of the collection.
But that doesn't discourage the sightseers.
By the year 1851,
the number of visitors has risen to around half a million.
A purpose-built ticket office is erected to cope with demand.
And official tours of the Jewel House begin...
even though its presentation attracted some harsh criticism.
There is an account in the early 1
..where the Jewel House is
rather like a wash house.
An aged lady takes a lantern in, seats everybody down,
reveals the jewels and she has a set script.
And if you knock her from her script,
she's utterly lost and has to return to the beginning.
I think some people made quite a joke of it in the end
to see how often they could distract her.
Today the Crown Jewels live in a purpose-built bank vault
within the Waterloo Barracks, the newest building on site.
And thousands of tourists queue each day
for a glimpse of the Queen's prized possessions.
Modern security measures forb
photographs of the jewels...
and they may never be filmed in situ.
But these are not the only precious possessions stored within the Tower walls.
In 2012, a
regalia is safeguarded here:
all the London Olympics medals,
freshly minted from eight tons of gold, silver and bronze.
The Tower is well used to the storage and display of precious objects.
It's been home to the longest-running exhibition in the world.
Since the 1600s there has been a lavish display of arms and armor
mounted on life-sized wooden horses.
It's called the Line of Kings.
The exhibit is currently off limits to visitors
while it's given a facelift.
When armor and weaponry be
on the battlefield,
it all remained on site,
and in the 1650s, someone had the bright idea of displaying it to visitors.
it is designed to impress.
The original mission statement is
the monarch's right to rule.
The mid-16
time to be a king.
So, in an exercise in public relations,
the official Line of Kings is created
to 'big-up' and fly the flag of the British monarchy -
part propaganda, part fantasy.
Significant doubts exist
over the armor of William the Conqueror.
Such armor is not even
invented until 500 years after his death.
The Line of Kings is a truly theatrical experience.
Karen Whitting has the task of bringing it into the 21st century.
What we'
is re-interpreting it for a new generation.
We are following in the tradition of those craftsmen,
mount makers, the people that crafted the horses...
We found a photograph of a horse and some wooden plinths
during an installation from the 1880s.
And that photo
is exactly like the installation here
where we're building wooden plinths
and putting horses on them.
Many of these horses - once props for armor -
go back hundreds of years.
Today they are in themselves rare and precious artifacts.
And, after months of work, they are once again about to be unveiled to the public.
One they are in place,
you get a real tingle and a buzz
because you can see the exhibition taking shape.
- Okay?
- Yeah.
Let's do an unveiling.
just put in here
will eventually have a rider on its back as well.
So I think it will look really dramatic.
The 400-year-old spectacular royal armor re-displayed
is now open to a new generation.
If the Tower is to survive for another thousand years,
it's because people want it to.
It's because we'll continue to have visitors.
It's because we can preserve and share this heritage,
which is just so exciting.
Preserving all of the Tower's treasures -
and even the basic fabric of the building - is a 24/7 job.
And keeping this royal fortress standing
takes a team of people working behind the scenes.
Alex Attelsey is one of the building surveyors.
Her job allows her a unique The best
are going in places where nobody else gets to go.
So you get these fantastic views of London that nobody else can see.
At the moment, we're on the Bowyer Tower.
We're doing some stone cleaning, repairs.
The roof was failing.
Water was getting in.
So we're replacing that.
But that's not all, the walls themselves need attention.
And there are plenty of secrets and surprises hiding within them.
We found the stone was loose.
When we took the stone out, we found this void.
In this one we found two bones.
Nobody yet knows exactly why the bones were placed there.
One possibility is that they were a supersti
offering to the gods,
deposited within the walls by one of Alex's predecessors.
If you look in the background of old photographs,
you can always see a little bit of scaffolding up.
The Tower generally has had some building work
or some scaffold repair work going on
for its entire lifetime.
And there's nothing new about the techniques Alex and her team are deploying.
We have gone back to the traditional construction of the buildings.
So we use hand tools to take out the mortar.
We use hand tools to carve the stones.
And we use the original bedding mixes between the stone joints.
So, basically, we've gone back to how they were built.
A 19th-century addition - the gargoyles...
..functional as well as decorative.
They were used to keep the evil spirits at bay.
But had the more practical function
of channeling rainwater away from the building.
This one is a grotesque.
It's purely decorative.
We're cleaning it with basically a brass toothbrush and water,
and we're cleaning off all the pollution and dirt build-up
'cause otherwise it suffocates the stone
and then we end up with problems like cracks and things.
The work of Alex and her team is never done.
Every 60 years the cycle of repairs begins again.
But, as an ancient legend states,
if certain residents leave the Tower,
it might be more than just repairs that are needed.
Ravens have been kept here pretty much forever.
As the story goes,
if the birds depart the Tower... the kingdom will fall.
So
keep them lifelong prisoners at the Tower of London.
And the man with the job of looking after them...
..Raven Master Chris Skaife.
There was an ancient legend: Should the ravens leave the Tower of London,
it would crumble into dust
and a great harm would befall the monarchy and the country.
and these black birds of doom are about to be shown out of the door.
We had a telescope on top of the White Tower
and there was hundreds of ravens around the Tower at that period of time.
The ravens are becoming a pest and interfering with the telescope.
The King said, 'Get rid of them all.'
Until someone turned around to the King and said,
'Squire, if the ravens leave the Tower of London,
it will crumble into dust and yourself will disappear.
Now, he was quite superstitious,
so he thought, 'I'd better keep some ravens here.'
So he decided to keep six here by Royal Decree.
That's why w
to this day.
In fact, I don't.
I have eight.
I have two spare, just in case.
(Cawing)
So the raven
are allowed to stay.
They often hang around in pairs, but each bird is given a name.
Portia.
Feeding time for the ravens is just another ancient ritual at the Tower.
Yum.
They get treated like royalty...
There we go.
..eating their way through a ton of meat a year.
There we go.
Sheep's hearts are a favored raven delicacy.
Tower Green, the former site of royal beheadings,
is today a haunt for Chris's favorite Raven, Merlina.
Right, Merlina is probably behind that bush over there.
So we'll go and have a look over there and see.
(Calls) Come on, the
Yeah, she's there.
I'll just go into the
and get her out.
Come on.
The trials and tribulations of a Raven Master.
Good girl.
That's better.
Right, where
Oh, there she is, over there.
I keep the ravens here at the Tower of London She was originally friendly, to start off with, when she came here.
That's the reason why she's my favorite.
Because I can actually approach her.
On occasions, when I'm sitting down in the Bloody Tower box,
she'll come in and sit with me
and I can actually stroke her and she'll fall asleep on my lap.
It's quite lovely.
Despite having clipped wings, Chris's feathered friends have been known
to put the future of the Tower in jeopardy.
There have been many occasions
where ravens have escaped from the Tower of London.
We had an incident about two years ago now where Munin
flew off.
She flew around the Tower and off she went up into the distance.
The first thing I did was check to make sure the Tower was still standing.
I checked.
Yep, still there.
Three days later, we got a phone call from a gentleman who lived near Greenwich
and he'd seen a raven in his back garden.
He'd caught the raven, put it in a bag and its little head was poking out.
Today it's back at the Tower of London
and it's the longest time a raven
has ever been away from the Tower of London in full flight.
With a full contingent of Ravens,
its beefeaters,
stores of secrets and bloody history,
the Tower survives for another day.
As night falls over the great city of London,
it's locking up time -
an excuse for some more pomp and ceremony.
The Ceremony of the Keys is the oldest military ceremony
anywhere in the world.
It goes back more than 700 years.
It's also the shortest.
It lasts seven and a half minutes.
Halt!
Who comes here?
- The keys!
- Whose keys?
Queen Elizabeth's keys!
Pass Queen Elizabeth's keys.
All is well.
Quick march!
This ceremony has been performed every night for 600 years.
I leave at exactly 53 minutes and 25 seconds
to carry out each ceremony.
God preserve Queen Elizabeth!
Oh, yea!
Tower of London Guard, to the Guard Room!
Dismiss!
(Chimes)
When we finish the ceremony, we hear the chimes on the Jewel House c
which is exactly ten o'clock.
(Clock chiming)
And the mighty fortress stands guard over London...
..just as it has for almost a thousand years.
Next time...
This famous landmark in London
was built by an American who risked everything for change.
He was a genius from
a fool at the weekend.
Discover the true story of this iconic store
and the maverick who built it.
This is his legacy.
This is...Selfridges.
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