Tower of London: Britain’s Top Heritage Site

Tower of London
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So this week’s class was held at the Tower of London and the word excited didn’t quite cut it! After a nice long stroll along the Thames, camera in hand and acting like a super tourist we arrived and I have to say it was one of the best classes we’ve had. The Curator of Collections, Sally, was so enthusiastic and down to earth in the way she explained the history of the Tower and how it is managed as a heritage site. It receives the most foot traffic of all Britain’s heritage sites but with such a complex history, presenting that can be a challenge. Just how do you present centuries worth of history to an audience whose let’s face it, primary goal is to see the Crown Jewels? Add to that, the fact that often a visitor’s expectation of what they will learn about the Tower is tied up with legend and folk tales, it’s a mine field. How do the curators tell fact without completely destroying what people think they know about the Tower’s History?

The different architectural styles
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When visiting the Tower people expect to learn or hear about executions, Anne Boleyn, the Princes in the Tower, the ravens or to see the Crown Jewels. I’ll be honest, that’s what I expected to be informed about. That has, after all, been what has motivated my previous visits. But this time around I found myself looking at other things. From the river side for example, I was taken aback by the multitude of architectural styles that were evident and that show how the Tower has expanded over time. I looked at that with a somewhat trained eye, but would someone else draw the same conclusions? And how do you communicate that to visitors? We walk around these grand sites expecting to look at what they house not necessarily the structures that house them and at the Tower, this can be detrimental to your understanding of its history for so much of its’ history is attached to the architectural changes. It is difficult to show that however, and while the signage that is placed on nearly every wall does help to indicate that history, it’s not always clear.

Also, with so many visitors there is somewhat of a difficulty in supplying enough information. The Tower produces guidebooks and leaflets and there are plenty of text panels on the interior exhibits to explain the history of artefacts. However, it was the issue of audio guides that I was particularly interested in. Due to the high volume of visitors there could never be enough audio guides to supply every visitor with one and so they charge for them. It was explained that this isn’t an ideal policy, but it is a necessity. It also means that those who are really there to engage with the history and not just the spectacle are able to engage at a higher level. Again, I’d never really thought about the policies behind audio guides before and why some places charge and others don’t and it does make sense; giving people the option, to take their level of engagement in their own hands and offering an additional service if that is their intention.  

3 Barbary Lion Sculptures
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(You Ready?) One of my favourite parts of this day however, was hearing about how the history of the Tower as the Royal Menagerie, has been used in recent exhibits. The inclusion of this part of its more unusual and often unheard of history is signified by the presence of 3 Barbary lion sculptures in the moat as you approach the main entrance. Immediately your interest is spiked as you look quizzically at them, why lions? What have they got to do with the history of the Tower of London?



Polar Bear Sculpture
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There are 13 of these sculptures in total making up The Royal Beasts exhibit and they are located in various places over the site. The menagerie was founded in the reign of King John in the early 1200s and was used as a repository of wild and exotic creatures for over 600 years. Most of the animals were given as political gifts to the reigning monarchs as demonstrations of power, political connections and symbols of foreign lands and were kept as sources of entertainment for members of court. The collection included Barbary lions, a polar bear, an elephant and baboons (all of which are remembered through the sculptures) and became a popular attraction, acting as a forerunner to the emerging zoological collections of the nineteenth century. In particular the Tower was in competition with the proprietor of the Exeter Exchange, Mr Edward Cross whose menagerie in the Strand, had established its own reputation. The menagerie at the Tower eventually closed in 1832 after several incidents, but having unearthed this ‘hidden history’ the Tower of London have created a hook that captures public interest. It’s a quirky feature of the Tower’s past that few people know about and hopefully some of those who overlook the history of the Tower and just come to see the ‘jewels’ will now approach it with less blinkered vision. By using more unusual areas of the Tower’s past, it can tap into a new market and break away from the homogenous narrative that can dictate the history of some historic sites.