Tower of London for kids - a great place for adults too. Royal Palace, Royal Prison, Execution Central and Murder Mysteries .
/The White Tower. A symbol of royal power for nearly a thousand years!
With over 1000 years of history, you’ll find plenty to do in the Tower of London for kids as well as some of the more fascinating stories and murder mysteries English history. The Tower of London is one of England’s iconic buildings and the remnants of just how brutal and bloody the Middle Ages were. Why does it have this reputation?From the barbaric and gruesome William the Conqueror who created it, to kings and queens who were excited there, the Tower of London is a place of gripping and captivating history that the whole family can see close up.
Why has it got this reputation?
William the Conqueror terrorised the people of south east England from here
Two royal princes, King Henry VI and the Archbishop of Canterbury were all murdered here
Henry VIII executed two of his wives and his top advisers here
Scroll down to, “Henry VIII legendary king and his 6 wives” for what happened and why.
Lady Jane Grey, a teenager, known as the, “Nine Days’Queen was executed here
Guy Fawkes was brutally tortured here and confessed to the Gunpowder Plot
A King of France and a King of Scotland were imprisoned here
The block was not used for Queen Anne Boleyn, she was beheaded with a sword!
The Tower of London for kids. All that history, a castle to explore, the Crown Jewels and exhibits that the kids will love.
The Tower of London for kids. They can try on some helmets
The Tower of London for kids . They can dress Henry VIII in the correct armour
The Tower of London for kids . They can have some electronic sword practice.
How about Henry VIII’s massive suit of armour?
Or his amazing suit of armour made for a young Henry on horseback.
Nearby is this English Civil War armour from a hundred years later.
A replica of Henry III’s throne
The royal bedroom
Walk along the battlements
See the awesome collection of the crown jewels in the building below (sorry but no photography allowed inside for security reasons)
Guarded by this man
And this man
Who will give you a free guided tour
You can get an idea of what you will see when watch this video
See the memorial to Anne Boleyn and 6 others who were beheaded inside the Tower’s walls!
See actors reenacting scenes from the Tudor period
And the famous Ravens. If they leave the Tower, England will crumble it is believed!
You can even see a medieval Toilet. It was called a “Gardrobe” because the used to hang clothes in it hoping that the smell would protect them from moths. From this practice we got the word “wardrobe”.
After visiting the Tower you could go and investigate “Tower Bridge” next door.
Or visit the battleship, HMS Belfast and find out about its missions in World War Two especially on D Day.
The history of the Tower of London-the stories that bring this place to life.
William the Conqueror - The creator of the Tower and tyrannical king
In 1066 the king of England , Edward the Confessor died without an heir. Four people originally claimed the throne but eventually, in October 1066 it came down to two, Harold Godwinson from Wessex in southern England and Duke William of Normandy. Both claimed that they were promised the throne by Edward and at the Battle of Hastings William defeated the English claimant Harold. Being from Normandy, William was seen as an invading foreigner by the 2.5 million Anglo-saxons (English) and as a consequence many rebellions took place. To ensure his safety in the capital of London, William built the White Tower. By the standards of the day it was huge and unusually made out of stone. It stood out towering over the rest of London, constantly reminding Londoners that the Normans were now in charge and that they were here to stay.
Note the stairs led to the door on the first floor which was easier to defend and harder for attackers to destroy it with a battering ram.
Did William the Conqueror really terrorise people?
Yes. Before he was king of England he gained a reputation for cruelty. His mother was the product of a liaison between the heir to the dukedom of Normandy and an unmarried tanner’s (leather worker’s) daughter who was considered to be very low in Norman society. When his enemies standing on besieged town walls made fun of this by hanging cow hides over the walls, William allegedly ordered the town to be captured and the inhabitants to be skinned alive. He also had prisoners’ eyes “put out” and when he first arrived in England, he ordered that the area including Crowborough in Sussex be destroyed in the hope that he would lure Harold into an early and ill-prepared battle. When the people of Northern England killed a prominent Norman sent there to keep the peace and rebelled in the winter of 1069, he ordered that the surrounding area should be laid waste. That is to say, all food, animals and buildings were destroyed over a vast area. This was known as the “Harrying of the North”. It was later claimed that this resulted in the deaths of 100 000 people which may be an exaggeration but a large number of people died of starvation in the winter of 1069-70.
St John’s Chapel on the second floor of the White Tower where Archbishop Simon Sudbury was captured and dragged to Tower Hill to be beheaded in 1381!
The murdered Archbishop of Canterbury!
In 1381 the people of Southern England took part in what was known as the “Peasants’ Revolt”. They had a long list of grievances dating back to “The Black Death” and now they were being asked to pay a high and very unfair, Poll Tax for the third time in three years for an unpopular war against France. The rebels came from Essex and Kent and aimed to occupy London. They hoped to get King Richard II to change his policies and dismiss his key advisers. One of those supposedly, “evil advisers” who was blamed for the Poll Tax, was Archbishop Simon Sudbury who was captured whilst praying in St John’s Chapel in the White Tower.Sudbury was dragged out of the Tower and beheaded on Tower Hill after 8 blows!
If you want to know more about the Peasants’ Revolt watch this short video by Professor Robert Bartlett, a leading authority on all things medieval.
It is believed that Henry VI was murdered here in his private chapel in a real life “Game of Thrones”!
Who was Henry VI and why was he murdered?
Henry V has been regarded by some as one of the greatest English kings but at the height of his face he died leaving the 9 month old Henry VI to run the country and carrying fighting against France in what is called the “Hundred Years’ War”. Henry V can be described as a “warrior king where as his son Henry Vi has been described as shy, timid and averse to war. Added to this throughout his adult life he had mental illness and this steadily got worse as his military, economic and political problems grew. With Henry’s decline noble factions began to jostle for influence and civil war broke out in 1455. Henry VI came from the Lancastrian family of kings whereas his rival came from the Yorkist family. From their emblems, the red rose and the white rose came the term “Wars of the Roses” which was to dominate English history between 1455 and 1485 when the first Tudor. Henry VII seized the throne. In 1461, Henry VI was overthrown by the Yorkist Edward IV but after a series of Lancastrian victories, Henry VI was reinstated in October 1470. However, a year later, in May 1471, Edward IV was again triumphant, this time at the Battle of Tewksbury and was made king once more. After the battle, Henry was imprisoned in the Tower of London and mysteriously died soon after. Yorkists maintained that this was due ”melancholy” in response to losing the battle and on hearing too the death of his son. Edward IV was crowned the following morning and many have suggested that Henry’s death was carried out on the orders of Edward.
The stained glass window in Henry’s personal chapel
The two “Princes in the Tower”?
Having regained power from Henry VI. Edward ruled until his early death in 1483. Next in line to the throne was his 12 year old son Edward and his 10 year old brother Richard. Immediately, plans were put in place for Edward to be the next king with his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester to advise him. Having been a dutiful brother to Edward IV, the Duke of Gloucester made a bid for power and declared that both of his nephews were illegitimate and parliament agreed with him. The grounds for illegitimacy were that Edward IV had not officially broken his engagement to his first fiancee, Eleanor Talbot, which in those days was part of a wedding contract and therefore, his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous and illegal. This might explain why his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was very low key and not the great public event that it would normally would be. Richard had the two princes placed in the “Bloody Tower” (named the Garden Tower at the time) for “their own protection” and proceeded with his own coronation. Supporters of Richard III maintain that because they were illegitimate, he had no reason to have them killed but after October 1483 they were never seen in public again. In August 1485, Richard III was defeated and killed in the Battle of Bosworth against Henry Tudor. On becoming King, Henry VII, he listed publicly all of Richard III’s crimes but oddly, murder of two young princes was never mentioned. The mystery of the Princes in the Tower remains unsolved.
The Bloody Tower where the boys were kept although named the Bloody Tower after their disappearance.
The children’ bones of 1674?
Two skeletons of young children were discovered by workmen working on stairs that led from the Royal Apartments to the White Tower. The obvious conclusion was that these were the bones of the two princes with the reasoning being that why would they be buried secretly if they were not the princes? Four years later, Charles II had the bones placed in an urn in Westminster Abbey. In 1933, the bones were examined and the ages and gender of the skeletons fitted with those of the two princes. Since then, with improvements in forensic techniques, questions have been raised about the validity of those conclusions questioning the gender and ages of the children. Recently, dental evidence has been used to question if the bodies were linked to the royal family. Unfortunately, forensic archaeologists have been denied the opportunity to DNA test the bones and therefore the mystery continues.
King Richard III. He doesn’t look like a hunchback here!
Richard III and Shakespeare
Shakespeare wrote plays and consequently the truth should not get in his way of designing and scripting an evil villain. Furthermore, as an Elizabethan playwright, Shakespeare had to make Richard III as evil as possible, Queen Elizabeth would not like her grandfather, Henry VII to be seen as anything other than the man who killed the murderer of the two little princes. The recent discovery of Richard III’s body in Leicester has given a little support to Shakespeare in that Richard’s spine was slightly curved but not to the extent that Shakespeare described.
King Edward IV, the father of the two princes.
Henry VIII legendary king and his 6 wives.
Henry built royal apartments at the Tower that unfortunately no longer exist. He also imprisoned and executed his second wife Anne Boleyn and his fifth wife, Catherine Howard there. Throughout his life Henry was desperate to have at least one son.
Why did he want a son?
Henry knew that when his ancestor, Henry I died leaving the throne to his only surviving child, a daughter named Mary, England quickly slipped into a disastrous civil war. He believed that males were dominant and could lead armies into battle, whereas women the other hand were weak, vulnerable and would not get men to follow them or support them in battle. If he only had a daughter, she would have to get married, possibly to a foreigner and would surely be challenged and a civil war would ensue. She would not continue the Tudor name and everything his father had achieved would be in vain.
So why did Henry VIII execute Anne Boleyn?
The simple answer is that she did not produce the required son! Henry had to create a new English church and cut England off from the Roman Catholic Church to get himself divorced from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon who could only produce a daughter and so, when Anne likewise only produced a daughter, she had to go too! Having divorced Katherine, he could not divorce Anne and it was deemed sensible to execute Anne on the grounds of adultery which was seen as treasonous against the king. Anne was not popular in England and consequently ridiculous rumours about her seducing him into divorcing Katherine, about her having an extra finger and an extra nipple abounded. When three men associated with Anne including her brother made forced confessions through torture, Anne was found guilty of adultery, incest and treason. She asked to have her head removed by a sword, “the French way”, rather than with an axe and Henry gave his permission. Supposedly, the sword was more efficient usually taking only one blow!
Catherine Howard
Why did Henry VIII execute another wife, Catherine Howard?
When she was 15, Catherine Howard was she went to live with the Dowager (widowed) Duchess of Norfolk and was allegedly seduced by Francis Dereham, a secretary of the Dowager Duchess. Their relationship progressed to the point where some suggested they acted like husband and wife!When the Dowager Duchess discovered the relationship in 1539 it was terminated. In 1540 Catherine, aged 16 or 17, married, Henry VIII aged 49 with Henry being totally ignorant of Catherine’s former relationships. It wasn’t long before Catherine tired of her much older husband and allegedly embarked on a relationship with a much younger man at Henry’s court called Thomas Culpepper. They met in secret but needed the help of Katherine’s lady in waiting, Lady Rochfort. It soon came to the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who also discovered her earlier relationship with Dereham and he informed the king. Both men were tortured, found guilty and executed, Culpepper beheaded and Dereham gruesomely hanged, drawn and quartered. In February 1542 both Catherine and Lady Rochford were beheaded at the Tower.
The Rack. Royal permission had to be granted before it could be used.
Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot
Every 5th November all over the UK huge bonfires are set alight and fireworks light up the night sky commemorating the failure of the “Gunpowder Plot”. In the weeks leading up to the event children used to gather old clothes to stuff with paper and create their own Guy Fawkes to place on top of the fire. The culmination of the plot was meant to see a catholic called Guy Fawkes ignite 36 barrels of gunpowder under the houses of Parliament, blow up the protestant King James and his members of parliament and replace the king with a catholic. The plot failed with Guy Fawkes being caught “red handed” in position to ignite the black powder. He was then taken to the Tower and ruthlessly tortured for the next 48 hours. We do not know if he was tortured on the rack but the it was a favoured method to extort information when permission was given by the king. From his confession, all the other plotters were identified and tracked down.
The plotters. Note Guy is in fact Guido on those days.
This evil torture device was given the name, the “Scavenger’s Daughter”
Essential information about the Tower of London
Getting there.
The best way is to use Transport For London’s District or Circle line to Tower Hill station. It is right next to the Tower and is simply a 5 minute signposted walk. You can see the Tower as soon as you leave the station and you can go under the busy road. Other stations a 15 minute walk away are Aldgate, Monument, Bank, Fenchurch Street and London Bridge.
By Car. Don’t bother, there is limited and expensive parking at Tower Hill Coach and Car par. You also have to pay the “Congestion Charge” if you are travelling Monody-Friday.
Best time to avoid the crowds
Just after opening time to let the early queue go through but before tourist buses turn up and after 3 pm when crowds begin to thin but allow yourself plenty of time, you might miss something!
Opening times the Summer, March- the end of October
Sunday and Monday 10.00-17.30
Tuesday to Saturday 09.00 -17.30 Last admission 17.30 (You would only have 30 minutes!!)
In the Winter November-the end of February
Sunday and Monday 10.00 -16.30
Tuesday to Saturday 09.00 -16.30 with last admission 16.00
Accessibility
The Tower is an historic building and thus presents access problems such as “difficult stairs and passageways” as well as cobbled areas. However, the Tower is constantly looking at ways of improving access for people with disabilities. To that end they have; hearing loops for people with hearing issues, a descriptive tour of the Jewel House and White Tower with specially trained wardens for people with slight issues, handling points, magnifying sheets, virtual tours etc
“Blue Badge” holders can park in assigned bays in the nearby Tower Hill Coach and Car Park. See hrp.org.uk for links to a map
See the hrp.org.uk website for further details of accessibility
Ticket prices Save money (10 % in 2019) by buying tickets online but do not be conned by flashy websites that sell online tickets with a “mark up”, get them from hrp.org.uk, this is the official Historic Royal Palaces website.
Adults £24.70
Concession 65+ £19.30
Child 5-15 £11.70
Family Saver 1 (1 adult+up to 3 kids) £44.40
Family Saver 2 (2 adults + up to 3 kids) £62.90
Visitors with access needs receive a concession rate admission ticket and are entitled to bring an accompanying adult /carer free of charge BUT please note that carer tickets can only be obtained on the day of the visit showing proof of registered disability
Members ticket for all 6 royal palaces for a whole year £53
Audio guides £4.00
Yeoman Warders’ tour FREE
Yoemen Warders’ free tours (Beefeaters’tours)
Every 30 minutes from 10.00 am Tuesdays to Saturdays and from 10.30 am Sundays and Mondays. Final tours begin at 3.30pm in the summer months and at 2.30 pm in the winter months.
Food
There are two cafes in the Tower complex and "the “Sargeant’s Mess outside. But you can save money by bringing your own food and sit on a bench to eat. Sometimes, they open the large grassy area, the Moat enabling people to have a picn
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Articles relevant to the Tower of London and events associated with it
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