A Visit to The Tower of London

Back in January, we visited London for a couple of days as a family, during our trip, we took in a few of the wonderful museums that London has to offer, including the Museum of London and the Tower of London.

I've been wanting to visit to the Tower of London for years but it costs quite a lot of money, however we were reviewing a new app called The Entertainer, using this, the tickets were two for the price of one. So, onto our visit, the tower is steeped in history and even today is a working palace/castle, with the Beefeaters, as they are so fondly known, living and working there to protect the crown jewels and should she need it, the Queen herself.

We headed to the crown jewels first but as photography inside is prohibited, I didn't get to take any pictures of the breathtaking crowns worn by past and present royalty, it was an honour to see it all though. The work and craftsmanship that has gone into the gold and the jewellery was just unbelievable, certainly worth a visit if you like all that glitters gold.

Then we moved onto The White House, this is the Castle Keep and stands in the middle of the tower complex, it is such a wonderful building to look at and really is the centrepiece to the attraction.

The White House is home to the line of kings, an amazing display of over 500 years of armoury, the detailed silver and engraved armour was divine and it was wonderful to see so much history in one room. The armour once worn by Henry VIII, with it's rather large codpiece was quite amusing.

Years of history from all over the world are brought to life in the wonderful exhibitions, my son particularly liked this dragon trophy. Trophies were made as a way of showing off the strength of an army, this one was made up with everything from scrolls to maps and rubies to bits of armour, the effect is brilliant and he was very imposing.

After a visit to see the ravens and the slightly gruesome tower torture exhibition, we headed out onto the riverside to see Tower Bridge, a big monument of London and something I have longed to see for some years, even against the grey sky it was beautiful and if we'd had time I'd have loved to walk over it.

We had a great time visiting the Tower of London, however I would say that had the children been slightly older maybe 8 or 9 it would have been a more enjoyable visit. A lot of the information and displays weren't really that easy for the children to understand, however they enjoyed looking at the armour and the jewels and seeing the ravens. After this we headed to the British Museum which I will blog about at a later date.