Tower of London night tour

A few weeks ago, our friends Erica and Jordan came up with the idea of visiting the Tower of London after dark. We had previously visited the tower, but the prospect of seeing it at night was interesting, so we jumped right in! Before we get to all that though, a brief bit of history about the tower:

Borrowing from our friends over at Wikipedia: The Tower of London is a castle on the Northern Bank of the Thames river in central London. It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England, and was generally seen as a symbol of the oppression inflicted upon London by the ruling elite. This is understandable considering it was used (in part) as a prison (all the way up until 1952!), and is quite famous as a place where prisoners were tortured and/or killed.

The famous Rack in the Tower dungeons

In fairness the tower was much more than just a prison. It has also served as an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the home of the Royal Mint, a public records office, and the home of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. In fact, today it is still the home of the Crown Jewels, and anyone can go inside and view them (behind thick glass walls while being watched closely by security guards).

Any shenanigans and we shall give you a stern talking to!

It is actually a very interesting place to visit, especially at night. So let's get to it!

As you might expect, visiting the tower at night brings out a different, spookier side of it than does a daytime visit.

The night is dark and full of terrors

Our visit included a guided tour from one of the esteemed tower guards, which was actually really great.

See all this stuff around you? It's old. Really old. Any questions?

We learned a lot about the history of the tower itself, and I thought it was particularly interesting that the guards actually live in the tower. Several of the buildings around the grounds of the tower are actually housing, where the guards and their families live. Pretty crazy.

The tour also took us inside several parts of the tower we hadn't been in before, and we got to see some interesting artifacts.

A mock up of King Edward I's bedroom

Fancy-pants throne. I believe this is Henry III's.

Old old wooden stairs. Old old bricks.

Uplighting makes everything look spookier

In addition to the cool tower stuff, we got some killer views of the Tower Bridge!

In the end, it was another great experience in London with Erica and Jordan. We're definitely glad they are here, and we look forward to more shenanigans around this town in the coming months. Cheers!

Mr. Blurry cam in action. Oops.

Mr. Blurry cam strikes again!