The History of the Tower of London
Nine hundred and sixty years on one site, and the fortress was a mint, a zoo, a records office and a prison for longer than it was ever a home. The sequence, in order.
1066: a timber castle inside the Roman wall
The Tower was founded towards the end of 1066, as part of the Norman Conquest, in the south-east corner of the old Roman city wall. The first structure was timber inside a palisade, thrown up quickly by a king who had won a battle and not yet won a country. Its position was chosen for the same reason every later ruler kept it: whoever holds this corner of the river holds London.
The 1070s: the keep in Caen stone
Within a decade work began on the great stone keep. Tradition dates the start to 1078, on the strength of the Textus Roffensis, which records Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, overseeing the building under instruction from William. Dendrochronology puts the start between 1075 and 1079. The archaeology suggests a pause between 1080 and the early 1090s that nobody has explained.
It was, for its first century, a resented symbol of occupation, and it was meant to be. The building it produced is still the thing the whole fortress is named after — the White Tower.
Every guided departure on yeoman warder tour tower of london tells some part of what follows; which part depends on how long it keeps you inside the walls.
1189 to 1285: two rings of wall and a moat
The fortress reached roughly its present shape under three kings. Richard I began the expansion, Henry III built the inner curtain wall and its towers, and Edward I wrapped a second, outer wall around that and cut a moat fed from the Thames. Edward also built the water gate that became known as Traitors’ Gate, so the royal apartments could be reached from the river.
A palace, and the coronation procession
From the early 14th century until the reign of Charles II, a monarch traditionally spent the nights before a coronation here, then led a procession from the Tower to Westminster Abbey. That is the thread that ties this fortress to the regalia: it was the starting point of the ceremony, and eventually the place the regalia lived.
1483: the princes
Edward V, twelve, and his brother Richard, Duke of York, nine, were lodged here by their uncle and regent, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ahead of Edward’s coronation. Parliament declared them illegitimate. Gloucester took the throne as Richard III. The boys were not seen again, and every account of what happened after that is inference from circumstance.
The Tudor century: Tower Green and the block
The fortress’s reputation as a prison is largely a Tudor reputation. Three queens were beheaded on Tower Green — Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey — and private execution inside the walls was a privilege of rank rather than a mercy. Most prisoners were killed in public on Tower Hill. Thomas More came in through the water gate. Elizabeth was brought here on 18 March 1554, after Wyatt’s Rebellion, and left to become queen.
Mint, menagerie, armoury, archive
For most of its working life the Tower was an industrial and administrative site. The Royal Mint struck coin here for about five centuries. The Royal Menagerie kept exotic animals from the 13th century until the 1830s, when the collection helped found London Zoo. The Office of the Armoury grew out of the King’s Privy Wardrobe in the mid-15th century and was based in the keep. The national records were stored here before the Public Record Office existed.
1660: the regalia that survive
The medieval and Tudor regalia were sold or melted down under the Commonwealth. What you see in the Jewel House today is largely a Restoration rebuild, made from about 1660 for the coronation of Charles II. The regalia had moved into the fortress during the 14th century after a run of thefts at Westminster Abbey; the collection has its own page.
The 19th century: restoration and the public
The moat was drained in the 1840s after it became a public health problem, and the Victorians set about restoring the fortress to what they believed a medieval castle should look like. Queen Victoria had granite paving laid on Tower Green to mark the execution site, though whether it marks the right spot is disputed. It is also the century in which the raven tradition first appears in the record — later than the legend claims.
The World Wars, and 1988
The fortress was used again for its original purpose in both world wars, and took bomb damage in the Blitz. In 1988 UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site. It remains a working royal palace, a garrison and the home of the regalia, and it took 2,817,852 visits in 2025 — the ninth busiest attraction in the United Kingdom that year.
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Late 1066 | Founded as part of the Norman Conquest; timber and palisade |
| 1075–1079 | The stone keep begun, by the timber evidence |
| 1240 | Henry III has the keep whitewashed |
| 1189–1285 | Two curtain walls and the moat, under Richard I, Henry III and Edward I |
| 1207 | A Keeper of the Crown Jewels first appointed |
| 14th century | The regalia move into the fortress from Westminster Abbey |
| 1483 | Edward V and his brother disappear |
| 1536–1554 | Three queens beheaded on Tower Green |
| c. 1660 | The Restoration regalia made |
| 1840s | The moat drained |
| 1883 | Earliest known reference to captive ravens |
| 1988 | Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site |
| 2025 | 2,817,852 visits |
Dates as sourced in this site’s content foundation. The official UNESCO record could not be retrieved when this page was written, so the inscription is given as a year only.
Standing in it is a different thing from reading about it, and a Yeoman Warder will tell most of the above better than a page can. Every way in is compared on Tower of London Tours, and the departures that spend longest inside the walls are set out on the Beefeater tours page.