Outer Curtain Wall With Casements And Mural Towers

This is the outer defensive wall and its associated towers encircling the Tower of London. The curtain wall itself dates primarily from circa 1275-85, built for Edward I during his major expansion of the fortress. The southern section, including the Cradle Tower and Well Tower, was added later between 1348-55 for Edward III. The complex underwent significant alterations and repairs in the 19th century, particularly under the direction of architect Anthony Salvin in the 1840s and 1860s.

Construction and Materials

The curtain wall is built of squared and coursed ragstone with ashlar dressings. The towers have lead and copper roofs. Parts of the wall show scored quoining designed to imitate masonry joints, indicating the entire structure was originally whitewashed. Most of the gunports, arrow loops, and crenellations visible today were reworked in the 19th century. However, the section between Legge's Mount and North Bastion retains two original loops, one set within an original round arch. The North Bastion was refaced in 1946-7. South of Brass Mount, a rectangular projection extends into the moat — one of three such structures (the other two now buried beneath the moat) that probably served as platforms for stone-throwing siege engines.

The casements built into the inner faces of the curtain walls are mostly mid-19th century. Those on the western side date from the mid-18th century and retain their original mid-18th-century sash windows and doors.

The Towers (described clockwise from Byward Tower to St Thomas's Tower)

Byward Tower

Located at the south-west corner, this tower dates from 1275-85. Its construction includes late 13th-century brick in the north-east turret and flint in the south-east turret. The parapet was rebuilt in brick during the late 18th or early 19th century.

The tower consists of an entrance passage flanked by two-storey cylindrical towers (heightened in the late 18th/early 19th century), each with three-storey rectangular turrets to the rear. The outer entrance features a pointed chamfered arch of two orders, followed by a portcullis slot. Murder holes ("meurtrieres") pierce the soffit of the rear arch. Early 18th-century double doors still hang in the entrance. The tower has original and restored arrow loops, 17th-century musket loops to the north, 17th-century square-headed windows with iron grilles, and two restored 13th-century lancets in the south tower.

The rear elevation has a similar entry arrangement, along with a 14th-century trefoil-headed two-light window and a 20th-century door set within an inserted late 15th/early 16th-century Tudor-arched doorway in the north turret. A braced 16th-century post supports a lean-to roof over the entry. The two storeys above the entrance passage, built between the turrets, are constructed of mid-16th-century timber framing. They feature leaded lights set in wood-mullioned and transomed windows, including square oriel windows with moulded bressummers at the centre. The second floor has a moulded fascia to its jetty and a coved cornice.

Interior of Byward Tower: The entrance passage has 19th-century studded doors set in pointed-arched doorways. The north door opens to a square lobby with quadripartite vaulting, a blocked doorway, a passage to a spiral staircase (vice), and a doorway to a skewed passage leading to an octagonal-shaped ground-floor chamber. This chamber contains pointed embrasures, a restored 13th-century fireplace with a corbelled hood, and engaged columns with moulded capitals supporting the springers of a chamfered ribbed vault. The south door leads to a similar vaulted lobby with a garderobe (latrine) to the east and another octagonal chamber with a 20th-century restored vault and fireplace.

A Caernarvon-arched doorway from the north-east staircase leads to the first floor, where there are octagonal chambers in both the north and south towers. The north chamber retains a late 13th-century fireplace with corbelled hood; the south chamber, entered through a 17th-century prison door, has a much altered and restored fireplace. The large central chamber contains 16th-century portcullis machinery to the west. To the east is a large room divided by an early to mid-16th-century timber-framed screen featuring mullioned Tudor-arched lights and two Tudor-arched doorways. This room has a 13th-century tile floor and a late 13th-century chamfered beam painted green with fleurs-de-lis, leopards, and heraldic birds (circa 1400). The Tudor rose appears on the hood of an early to mid-16th-century fireplace built over a fine wall painting dating from around 1400, which depicts a Crucifixion scene against a similar green and gold background.

Byward Postern

Located to the south-east, this structure was built in 1350 for Edward III. It rises three storeys. The lower stage has a four-centred archway leading to an entrance lobby with a lion's mask on the central boss of a ribbed segmental vault. This is followed by two segmental-pointed archways containing 16th-century doors to the former drawbridge area, which features 16th-century panelling, and two outer archways to the south.

Above are two mid-16th-century timber-framed storeys with tension bracing to the vertical studding, a moulded fascia to the second-floor jetty, and a coved cornice. Square oriel windows contain leaded lights set in wood-mullioned and transomed windows with arched heads. The interiors are noted as having late 16th/early 17th-century panelling and ribbed ceilings.

An early 16th-century wedge-shaped projection extends to the south, with gun ports and a restored archway to the west. Its interior contains a brick-lined passageway to gun loops and an 18th-century staircase to the first floor, which has gun ports and 18th-century panelling.

Legge's Mount

This two-storey semicircular bastion at the north-west corner dates from 1275-85 and was heightened in 1682-3, when gun ports were added. To the rear is a brick two-storey, six-window range from 1682-3 with early 19th-century sashes and raised storey bands.

The interior is noted for early 16th-century brick walling and vaulting to the basement, forming part of the assay office associated with the Tudor Mint, as well as an early 19th-century bomb-proof vault.

Brass Mount

This semicircular bastion at the north-east corner dates from the late 13th or early 14th century. It contains a mural gallery built in original brick with eleven embrasures that were later altered into 17th-century gun ports, one containing an iron grille, plus six garderobes. The basement and ground floor to the rear were formed in the early 20th century.

Develin Tower

Located at the south-east corner, this tower was built 1275-85 as a postern tower connected by a walled causeway to the now-demolished Iron Gate to the east. It is a rectangular two-storey structure projecting eastward into the moat. The tower was partly rebuilt in 1679, when two north gun loops were inserted and a keyed semicircular architrave was built around a blocked first-floor east doorway.

Well Tower

Dating from 1275-85 and rebuilt above wall-walk level in the mid-19th century, this is a rectangular two-storey tower with a rectangular staircase turret to the north-east. It has restored cross loops, a pointed-arched doorway to the west wall-walk (restored in the 19th century), a restored lancet to the north, two shoots for drawing water in the south wall, and a mid-19th-century two-light window.

Attached to the north wall is part of a cross wall to the Salt Tower, built to bar access to the inner ward.

Interior: The ground-floor room has a two-bay quadripartite vault and a 17th/18th-century fireplace. A square-headed chamfered doorway leads to the spiral staircase. The first-floor chamber is accessed through a doorway with a late 13th-century pointed rear arch and contains a 17th/18th-century fireplace.

Cradle Tower

Built 1348-55 for Edward III as a private water-gate providing access to the royal apartments, this tower was rebuilt above the wall-walk level in 1867 by Anthony Salvin. It has a T-plan with a polygonal stair turret to the west.

The south entrance features a pointed moulded arch set within a segmental-arched recess. The entrance has grooves for a portcullis and retains a timber grille with a 14th-century iron hinge and two drawbar holes. The tower has restored and 19th-century loops, trefoiled lights to the sides, and a 14th-century lancet in the stair turret.

The north elevation has offset angle buttresses flanking a moulded outer arch of two orders and a pointed inner arch with a portcullis groove. It features cinquefoil-headed lancets and 19th-century one- and two-light windows to the first floor.

Interior: The entrance passage has two-bay vaulting, with ribs springing from corbels (including grotesque animals to the south) to a hollow circle in each bay. Pointed-arched doorways on either side include one to the east leading to a rectangular room (the former porter's lodge) with a 14th-century square-headed fireplace containing a bread oven and quadripartite vaulting springing from enriched corbels. A rebuilt doorway to the west leads to a quadripartite-vaulted vestibule with a pointed-arched doorway to the spiral staircase.

St Thomas's Tower

Built 1275-85 as the state entrance and royal apartments, this is a two-storey oblong tower with projecting turrets at the southern angles. It was originally entered by boat via a water-filled basin beneath the tower.

The south front has a pointed arch of two chamfered orders, restored cross loops, and a five-window range of 19th-century two-light windows. The north elevation features a broad stone arch to the basin, reached by a flight of steps from the inner ward. Above this is timber framing from 1532-3 with oriel windows, all restored in 1862-5 by Anthony Salvin.

The basin entrance is flanked by towers to east and west. The west tower has an ancient studded door with a lock set in a pointed-arched doorway and a mid-19th-century pointed-arched doorway to the first floor. The east tower also has an ancient studded door in a pointed-arched doorway and is connected by a bridge dating from 1867 (replacing the original) to Wakefield Tower.

Interior: Mural galleries run through the tower, though much of the original vaulting was destroyed in the late 17th/early 18th century. These galleries connect to vaulted chambers in the corner turrets and to a spiral staircase in the north-east turret, which provides access via a restored pointed-arched doorway to the bridge.

The first floor, subdivided in the mid-19th century, originally formed a royal hall to the west and a chamber to the east. The vaulted chamber in the south-east room has chamfered ribs springing from engaged shafts with moulded capitals, hollow-moulded rear arches, and two piscinae, indicating it was built as an oratory (private chapel). A similar vaulted chamber exists in the south-west tower, and traces of a garderobe survive from the former hall. The main beams supporting the floors and roof date from around 1532.

Historical Context

Edward I's work at the Tower of London between 1275-85 represented a massive undertaking. It principally involved filling in the old moat and constructing a new moat with the outer curtain wall and towers described here. The project cost £21,000 — more than all his Welsh castles combined except Caernarvon.