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Only the foundations of the Lion Tower remain, marked out by a semicircle of stones set in the cobbles. A
drawbridge linked the Lion Tower to the further side of the moat; below the modern walkway is the pit into
which the weighted end of the bridge fell. The Lion Tower took its name from the royal menagerie, famous for
its lions, which once was housed nearby on the wharf but was later moved into the Lion Tower itself. There it
remained, although a serious impediment to traffic in and out of the Tower, until the menagerie was closed in
1834, when some of the animals were taken to the new zoo which had been formed at Regent’s Park.
As an additional defence of this entrance, a large brick outwork on the further side of the moat, called the
Bulwark, was built by Edward IV in about 1480, after the Wars of the Roses.
The excavation of the moat, the work of Edward I’s reign, took some six years. It was filled from the river
at high tide; sluice gates held in the water as the river ebbed, and controlled the flow in order to work tide-mills.
Eventually, the moat was cut off from the river, and its stagnant waters filled up with refuse from the Tower
and the houses on Tower Hill. In 1843, after several outbreaks of cholera in the Tower, the moat was drained
and filled in to about the previous water level.
Answer the following questions.
1. What were the defences of the Western entrance?
2. What are the decorations of the room above the gatehall?
3. Why did the Byward Tower become the postern to the Tower for royalty?
4. Why did the Lion Tower get such a name?
5. What is the additional defence of the Western entrance?
It’s interesting to know.
The Tower Wharf
When the Tower was the chief storehouse of armaments in the country, much of the wharf was taken up
with the movement and storage of munitions, and it accommodated at different times cannon-foundries, a small
arms factory and proof yard. The wharf also had a ceremonial role as the landing-place of royalty and of foreign
dignitaries before they entered the city, while ever since the time of Henry VIII who first had the Tower well
defended with ordnance, the guns along the wharf have been fired on occasions of national rejoicing. Royal
salutes are nowadays fired from the gunpark, at the western end of the wharf.
As the artillery at the Tower is part of the Royal Armouries collection, the guns for salutes are brought in
by a detachment of the Honourable Artillery Company, towing four 25-pounders behind Landrovers. Sixty-two
gun salutes are fired for royal occasions, on the anniversaries of the birthdays, actual and official, of the Queen,
of the Queen’s accession, and of the birthdays of Prince Philip and the Queen Mother. Forty-one guns are fired
at the State Opening of Parliament and when a foreign Head of State arrives on an official visit to the Queen.
The Tower Hill
Most of Tower Hill was once part of the Liberties of the Tower, the area outside the walls which was
nonetheless under the jurisdiction of the Tower and independent of the City of London. The Liberties are now
marked by 31 boundary-stones, each bearing the broad arrow denoting royal ownership, from Tower Pier
around the Hill and down by St Katharine’s Way to the Iron Gate Stairs by Tower Bridge. Every third year, on
Ascension Day, the Tower’s authority is reasserted in the ceremony of Beating the Bounds.
The Tower Hill postern, the foundations of which are at the end of the subway leading to the underground
station, was built soon after the completion of the new moat, around 1300, in effect as part of the Tower’s
defences. The postern gave entrance through the city wall, a section of which survives beyond the underpass.
On the other side of the roadway, in Trinity Gardens, lies the marked site of the scaffold on Tower Hill.
Some 125 Tower prisoners died there, most by beheading which was the honourable form of execution allowed
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