Qualla: Tower of London https://qualla.com/tower-of-london en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/tower-of-london-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tower of London https://qualla.com/tower-of-london Tower of London: Introduction https://qualla.com/tower-of-london/ Photo credit APK, CC BY 4.0. It was supposed to be hated. When William the Conqueror started building the White Tower in 1078, the chroniclers of the time describe it without admiration - a foreign keep imposed on an English city by an army that had won at Hastings twelve years earlier and was not letting anyone forget. The Normans wanted the Saxon Londoners to see this castle every time they looked east, and the castle was positioned so the strongest defences faced inward, at the city. Nearly a millennium later, Londoners walk under those same walls on their way to work. The hatred wore off. The stone did not.

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Image: APK | CC BY 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/tower-of-london-wp/gcpv-tower-of-london-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tower of London: The White Tower https://qualla.com/tower-of-london/ Photo credit Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0. The keep that gives the whole castle its name is one of the largest medieval keeps in the Christian world. It measures 36 metres by 32 at the base, rising 27 metres to the southern battlements, originally three storeys high. Norman keeps were entered above ground for defensive re...

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Image: Bernard Gagnon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/tower-of-london-wp/gcpv-tower-of-london-the-white-tower.mp3 0:06 2 full Tower of London: Rings Within Rings https://qualla.com/tower-of-london/ Photo credit Tristan Surtel, CC BY-SA 4.0. What you see today is essentially the castle Edward I finished in 1285. The White Tower sits inside the innermost ward, the earliest enclosure. Around that is the inner ward, walled and towered under Richard I in the 1190s. Around that, the outer ward, completed by Edward I, with...

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Image: Tristan Surtel | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/tower-of-london-wp/gcpv-tower-of-london-rings-within-rings.mp3 0:06 3 full Tower of London: Prisoners https://qualla.com/tower-of-london/ Photo credit Sheri from Ft. Myers, FL, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. It functioned as a prison from 1100 to 1952 - from Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, who escaped down a rope smuggled in a wine cask, to the Kray twins, the East End gangster brothers held briefly here for failing to report for National Service. The peak of its use as a prison w...

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Image: Sheri from Ft. Myers, FL, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/tower-of-london-wp/gcpv-tower-of-london-prisoners.mp3 0:06 4 full Tower of London: Restoration and Survival https://qualla.com/tower-of-london/ Photo credit Michael Gwyther-Jones from London, UK, CC BY 2.0. By the mid-19th century the Tower had a problem - it was full of empty buildings. The Royal Mint moved out. The Ordnance Survey left. Various administrative functions relocated. Anthony Salvin and John Taylor took on the task of restoring what remained to a more uniformly medieva...

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Image: Michael Gwyther-Jones from London, UK | CC BY 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/tower-of-london-wp/gcpv-tower-of-london-restoration-and-survival.mp3 0:06 5 full Tower of London: The Yeomen and the Ravens https://qualla.com/tower-of-london/ Photo credit Steve Collis from Melbourne, Australia, CC BY 2.0. The ceremonial guardians of the Tower, the Yeomen Warders, have lived here since 1485, when Henry VII established the bodyguard. They live with their families inside the walls and conduct visitor tours by day. At 9:53 each evening they perform the Ceremony of the Keys - locking t...

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Image: Steve Collis from Melbourne, Australia | CC BY 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/v/tower-of-london-wp/gcpv-tower-of-london-the-yeomen-and-the-ravens.mp3 0:06 6 full