When is the best time to visit Tower of London -

Visiting the Tower of London

After getting all the business end of the trip buying a campervan in UK ready to tour in, we got to have some fun. There is so much to see and we have a long list of must see places and things while in London.

So, off to Tower of London we went, by Train from Rochford to Liverpool Street, then a short 10 minute walk to Tower of London.

Helpful tip – it is cheaper in a lot of cases to buy a full day travelcard. These are approximately 24 pound each per adult, BUT if you have three adults we got a third off discount, big bonus. By having this pass you can get on/off Trains, Tube and Buses anywhere. NB. Kids under 11 are free on the tube, underground once in London, at the time of writing.

Map

Thank goodness for the App Mapsme, I had already downloaded the maps prior to leaving home (unlimited wifi) and could then use offline – highly recommend!

Tower of London

When is the best time to visit the Tower of London, any time! We had a great day, even though the website says to allow two to two and a half hours, we were there nearly four! What a great place, Miss B was loving all the armoury and of course the Crown Jewels!

When you enter, there are options for Audio guides for approx 5 pound. We were lucky to stumble on a couple of school groups in different areas. This meant we benefited from their animated and dressed in character guides. They had animated explanations of the conditions, torture and activities of Kings and Queens over the history of the Tower.

The guides description of the torture method ‘The Rack’ will not be forgotten easily by Miss B.

What an amazing history the Tower has experienced. Self guided walks through armoury, the Crown Jewels, the Royal Beast exhibit, the various towers and museum there is so much amazing history to absorb.

What is a beefeater?

Buffetiers were guards in the palace of French kings. They protected the king’s food. However, the name Beefeater is more likely to have originated from the time when the Yeomen Warders at the Tower were paid part of their salary with chunks of beef.

So many great facts about the Tower of London from Visit Brittain…

It was built as a royal palace and a defense system
The tower is designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO
If the Ravens leave the tower, the kingdom will fall..
There are over 23,500 jewels there today
22 Executions took place within the Tower of London
during the 1200s a Royal Zoo was founded at the Tower of London and remained there for 600 years
Someone somewhere has a spare key
The buildings and grounds were damaged in World War II
Its a haunted House

There is a childs Tower of London tour book available from the giftshop for 5 pound. If we had seen it prior to going through we probably would of bought it to assist with the educational aspect and something that Miss B could of kept as a souvenir. This would of helped learn our Henrys, Richards and Charles.

Resources and additional notes/lessons

The following day we watched a Horrible Histories video on youtube on the Ravens at the Tower of London. Another one on the attempt to steal the Crown Jewels and also a fun one on Charles II after seeing how he handled the Crown Jewels attempted theft.

We also read some more facts and stories from Info Barrel on the Horrible History of Tower of London – Link

The site Historic Royal Palaces offers some great reading material on Tower of London and a very good 48 minute video on Henry VIII which we watched and discussed how different the writing, writing instruments, how long you lived and living conditions to name a few.

Don’t forget to check out our kids travel worksheet on Tower of London, improve your childs retention of information and provide a great momento of their visit.