The Strangest Things At The Tower Of London - A Guided Tour Of Its Weird And Wonderful Oddities

Ladies and gentlemen, they don't call it the Tower of London for nothing. It's one of the most beloved and strangest tourist attractions in the whole world. I'm Jessica, the museum guide, and today we are visiting His Majesty's Fortress, the Tower of London. Now, if you're planning to be one of the three million visitors that the Tower of London will greet this year, or you just want to learn more about it from the comfort of your sofa, welcome. I'm delighted that you're here. On this tour of oddities, we are going to be visiting all areas of the Tower, as well as multiple museums, the Fusiliers Museum and the tiny but fascinating Royal Mint Museum. In many ways, the Tower of London is a museum of museums, and it's filled with some really strange and unusual oddities, and that's what we're covering today. Right now, I'm standing in front of this glass pillow, and this is here to represent the execution by beheading of royals here at the Tower, most notably Queens Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey. Of course, the Tower is very well known for executions and torture, and it's also known as being home to England's oldest museum, the White Tower and its line of kings. But when I started to try to include all of this information into this video, it was getting out of hand. So I've decided to split my tours to the Tower of London into three videos. Well, four if you count my Patreon video about the Chapel Royal, St. Peter ad Vincula. Today's video is all about the Tower of London's oddities. And then in two weeks, I'll release an extensive video tour of the White Tower, one of the oldest museums in the world. Finally, in a month, I'll release a all about torture, executions and alleged murders that have taken place here. They're all fascinating topics. If you're new to my channel, welcome. I'm delighted to have you here. And I hope that you choose to stick around, like, comment, subscribe and all that stuff. If you're a regular viewer, I really think that you'll enjoy my Patreon channel. Over there, I've just released a separate video all about the Tower's legendary church, St. Peter ad Vincula. Also over on my Patreon channel, you'll find an interview that I recently did with Margot Moore, a fellow tour guide and YouTuber over on Crown & Kingdom. She used to live here at the Tower of London and she tells me all about her experiences. That's available for all my Patreon members, even at the free level. Just click the link below. On Patreon, I release at least one extra video tour every month. And you'll also get access to my extensive archive with more than two dozen exclusive videos and bonus content. Plus an invitation to my annual in-person free Patreon-only tours. I hope to see you over on Patreon. Now before we start our tour today, I want to tell you a little bit about an overview of the history of the Tower of London. You can see Tower Bridge just behind me there. And that's because we're on the north bank of the River Thames, Tower Bridge famously named for the Tower of London. The first fortress was commissioned here in 1067 to, quote, over-awe the citizens of nearby London. And they were themselves living behind a wall that we will see shortly. The tower was originally made of timber and built into one of the corners of London's Roman Wall. And then a stone version of the tower was completed in the following decades. In the year 1100, the first prisoner was locked up inside. His name was Renolf Flambach and we'll actually see him in my second video that I'm making all about the White Tower Museum. By the way, he escaped using a rope smuggled into him in a bottle of wine. Since then, it has been one of the most iconic fortresses in the world. A place of horror, wonder, treasure and jewels. Not to mention some ravens who eat biscuits soaked in blood. We're not starting our tour today inside the tower. No, there's some interesting oddities surrounding and connected to the tower that we need to talk about first. And we're starting here, just outside of Tower Hill Station, to talk about this last surviving bit of the Roman Wall. Yes, THE Roman Wall, built around 200 CE. It was added to extensively in the medieval period and remained in place until the end of the 18th century, when a lot of what remained was taken down to make traffic flow more smoothly. Just a reminder, and because this is important to the history of the Tower of London, the Romans founded Londinium in around 50 CE. And though they faced resistance, and they were destroyed by fire during the Boudiccan revolt of 60 and 61 CE, Londinium became the biggest and most important Roman British city. By the way, we need to talk about Boudicca. Sounds like a movie, but we need to. That's a future video tour for sure. There's actually a really good section of wall that a lot of people don't know about a few steps away, in the courtyard of the Leonardo Hotel here. Here, we can see a statue that we think depicts Emperor Trajan. This is an early 20th century cast that was recovered from a scrapyard in Southampton in the 1920s. It was cast from a late 1st century statue found in Minterno. That one is on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. By the way, Trajan, who presided over a great military expansion in the early 2nd century, he never actually visited Britain. Now, we're walking over to the tunnel, and you can see that I'm walking under this subway. That's the British term for an underpass. I absolutely love these paintings, depicting some of the most famous figures and places in the tower's history. These were commissioned in 1999 from Stephen B. Whatley to promote the tower. The paintings were reproduced on steel vitreous enamel panels, and that's what we can see right now. You can see Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn, Henry III. I know for a fact that Margot's favorite here is Charles II. She loves anything having to do with him, but she really loves this painting. Here's one of those medieval bits I was telling you about, one of the medieval posterns. This one gave access to the City of London from the east, and it's the only surviving example of a large medieval gate tower in the city wall. Now, one of the first things you might notice when you leave the station is this moat that surrounds the Tower of London. And yes, it is actually very overgrown. Why? Well, 20 million seeds were planted in 2022 in honour of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. Each of the flower species was specially selected for their colour and their ability to attract different kinds of pollinators. It's very important to create biodiversity in the heart of London. Now, the moat itself was first built by William the Conqueror. He wanted a defensive ditch around two sides of the Great Stone Keep. That's the building that we call the White Tower. We can actually even see it from this angle. The ditch would flood with tidal river water. In the 1240s, under King Henry III, a proper moat was finally constructed, and then Edward I expanded it a few decades later. That's the moat that we can see here in this artist's representation. It was massive, at least 50 metres wide. It was full of young pike. And just look at this wicker fish trap, dating from the 15th or 16th century. You can see it on display here in St Thomas's Tower, discovered when they were doing excavation work in the 1990s, and it still has fish skeletons inside. But by the 1840s, this moat was a stinking cesspit. It was so malodorous, and had caused an outbreak of a deadly infection in the early 1840s, that the Duke of Wellington decided to drain it. The water was described as being filled with, quote, putrid animal and excrementitious matter. Yuck! So now, if you want to be technical, and you know I do, this is actually described as Believe it or not, it was used by the Yeoman warders as an allotment, both before and then especially during the World Wars, providing the tower residents with produce during rationing. Of course, the ditch has the capacity to become a moat again once more. When the Thames burst its banks in 1928, it did just that. And I mean, of course, that could happen again. Let me show you one more interesting oddity before we enter into the tower walls themselves. On my right, just here, next to this pink hot dog van, this looks like a big old postbox, but it's actually the entrance to the tower subway. That was the second ever tunnel built under the River Thames. Now the first tunnel was dug between 1825 and 1843, between Rotherhithe and Wapping, using something called the Tunneling Shield, developed by Mark Brunel and his son Isambard. You can see a model of the Tunneling Shield at the Brunel Museum. It was innovative, but it cost so, so much. An enormous sum back then at £600,000. However, a few years later, a South African named James Greathead developed a new technology. He announced that he could do the same much quicker and cheaper with his Greathead Shield Tunneling Digger. And that went on to dig a lot of the tube lines, by the way. His statue is prominently located in the City of London, on Cornhill, and his tunnel, this one, only took 10 months and £16,000 to build. Now this is the entrance to that second tunnel, which was opened in 1869, but then became redundant when Tower Bridge opened. Today it's used to run cables and pipes across the river. Now just look over here on my left. These animal sculptures represent the fact that the tower was once home to the Royal Menagerie. Yes, it was a zoo! I'll talk about that later on in this video, when we visit a display about just that. Look at how fascinating this has been already, and we're not even inside yet. Now that we're inside the walls, let's start by talking about this tower behind me, the Byward Tower, and an oddity that we can't actually see. Very few people can, actually. The Byward Tower is not open to the public, but it is home to an exceptional and unusual piece of 14th century medieval art called the Byward Angel. Just look at the photos, wow! Painted right on the wall, St John the Baptist, the Virgin Mary, St John the Evangelist, and St Michael the Archangel. Sadly, you can see it was partially covered in the Tudor era, when a large chimney was built here, covering up what we believe to have been Christ on the cross. Look at the Tudor rose that's still partially here. Now look at St Michael. He's holding up a set of scales, weighing the souls of the dead. Look at the imp on his scale. This was likely placed here for a reason, and I will come back to that reason shortly when I visit the Royal Mint. Before we actually enter the Mint Museum, let's notice here, yes, this sign says doctor's surgery, and just for my non-British viewers, a doctor's surgery in this country means a doctor's office. No one's having surgeries here. But why would the Tower of London need a doctor's office for tourists who slip and fall on the cobbles? No, remember that about 150 people actually live here at the Tower of London, including my friend and colleague Margot Moore. I filmed an interview with her, and it's up over on Patreon, about her experiences living here at the Tower of London. Just down here you can see some of the Beefeaster's residences, places where people actually live here at the Tower. So there's many services and amenities available to them, such as a pub, of course, we're in Great Britain after all. Remember, when the big gate outside closes at 10pm, if you're in, you're in, and if you're out, you're out. Well, not really the way it was in medieval times, but now the people who live here get access every day to an ever-changing password that's simply called the word. And so they can come and go as they please. But at 10 o'clock, something occurs here every night called the Ceremony of the Keys. Of course, one of the quintessential experiences of the Tower of London is taking a tour with the Yeoman Warder, aka a Beefeater. On our tour today, I'm gonna let a Yeoman Warder pop in and say a few words when it's applicable. They are decorated military officers, yes, but they are also brilliant tour guides. They have been here guarding the Tower of London since Henry VII established the role on September 16th, 1485. And that's 541 years ago, making them one of the oldest military corps in the world. Okay, so why are they called Beefeaters? Well, no one really knows. But it may be because of generous rations back in the 16th and 17th century. Oh, and yes, there are female Beefeaters ever since 2007. Moira Cameron, a former warrant officer who served 22 years in the British Army, became the first woman to join the ranks. Yeoman Warder's 500-year history. Now we're heading inside the Royal Mint, which was indeed here between 1279 and 1810. And this street became known as, you guessed it, Mint Street. Edward I, the king in the 1270s, was understandably vexed by widespread tampering of coins. Even though the punishment was death, the practice of coin clipping was very common. They used tools very similar to those used for making coins in the first place. The designs didn't reach the edge of the coin. So basically, you could just snip off a wee bit of each one and create ingots worth a lot on the continent. Look here at these two Edward I coins, one clipped and one not. This would remain a problem for centuries. Edward I used the coin clipping crisis as a reason to move the mint here to the tower. But he also used it as an excuse to scapegoat England's Jews. In 1278, he had nearly every Jewish head of household arrested, and many were imprisoned here in the tower. Around 300 were executed and their money was seized. Edward used this money to build St. Thomas's Tower above Trader's Gate, which we'll see pretty soon. This hoard of coins is called the Colchester hoard, hidden in a medieval home that probably belonged to a wealthy Jewish merchant called Aaron of Colchester. They never had a chance to recover the hidden hoard. They were probably some of the many persecuted Jews at the time. Making coins was a hot and dangerous job, but many of the men who did this job were actually seasonal workers, farmers and fishermen, who were called in when new coins needed minting. Remember the byword angel that we just spoke about? Well, it's upstairs and just a few meters away. The workers here at the mint would have been using scales like the ones Archangel Michael is holding, and so this was a reminder to stay honest. It was hard work, and it was common to lose fingers, hands, or even your life in machines like these ones. There were other hazards too, poisoning from all of the molten metals. On the wall here they have a list of some of the dangers and some remedies of what to do if you fall ill with this. Metal workers who became ill were advised to drink milk from a human skull. That brings us to corpse medicine, aka medical cannibalism. Charles II was known to utilize this miracle cure. When he began to have seizures, he partook of the king's drops. They were crushed up human skulls served in a human skull. I think it's good that we're filming right next to the doctor's office. Speaking of Charles II, Margo will be telling you a little bit more about him a bit later on. But for now, you need to know that he took the throne after 11 years of exile after his father's execution. Between 1653 and 58, the country was ruled by the Puritan Oliver Cromwell, who didn't like spending money. Now he not only melted down the crown jewels, but he also removed royal symbols from England's currency. Although later he had it remade with himself wearing a Roman laurel wreath, like a Roman emperor. Classic Cromwell. In this little video here, Charles II is taking the mick of him for that. Well, Charles II wanted to make sure that everyone knew there was a new sheriff, uh king, in town when he came to the throne. He wanted the public to have pockets full of money with his face on them. Remember, at this time in history, often for most people... Thanks, Cromwell. Remember, for most people in history, the only time that they would see a picture of their monarch is on the coins. So he wanted people to know what he looked like. He commissioned coins of higher value. And look, look at this little punch in place here. This was used for his coins. And check out the tiny little elephant below his neck. This was there to let you know that the gold mined for this particular coin came from Africa. I wonder how much some of these coins are worth. Well, now I don't have to wonder. The sponsor of today's video is the coin identifier coin check app. Of course, the change in my pocket probably isn't worth as much as these, uh, William III four pence pieces are, but they can really surprise you. Think about the times that you've had a potential fortune in your pocket and you've paid for a pint with it. Or maybe you're a collector and you want to find a way to track and organize your collection. The coin check app is your answer and it's super easy to use. I can just use the app to snap a photo and I get an instant ID. You can see that recent eBay sales on this one have gone for up to like $1,200. So it'd be pretty nice to find one of these. If you've got any old coins in your house, and I mean any, scan them first. You just never know. A pub near my house found an old coin underneath their floorboard and ended up selling it for £12,500. It works on coins from all around the world, by the way. Download the coin check app now. The link is in the description below. It's really cool. Let me tell you about one more strange tale here at the Royal Mint section of the Tower of London. That of serial counterfeit coiner and confidence man William Chaloner and Sir Isaac Newton. Yes, that Isaac Newton. Now, while you might know Isaac Newton as a scientist, he was also the master of this very mint. He used his intellect to help put an end to the golden age of counterfeiting. During his time in the role, he made it his mission to hunt down Chaloner, who had started as an apprentice to a nail maker in Birmingham. After a series of frauds and forgeries, Chaloner had become a coiner. That is, one who counterfeits coins. And he was a damn good one. So one of the things that made him such a good criminal is that he fought for harsh penalties for criminals. He fought for something called the Great Recoinage under King William III. He did this with the idea that he could position himself as an expert and a critic of the current system and gain access to this mint. Newton was on to him though. Most importantly for our tale, he began visiting Newgate Prison, which is mocked up right here, to speak to prisoners there and he offered stays of execution to anyone who would talk to him. Meanwhile, the House of Commons was duped by Chaloner and ordered Newton to give him access to the mint. Newton refused to do so and now he was mad. Very mad. And he was determined to prove that Chaloner was a fraud. He spent 12 hours a day working on the case and collecting evidence. He was obsessed. But Chaloner slipped up. He sold a forged lottery ticket to a pawnbroker and he was ratted out. In 1699, his case went to the notorious hanging judge, Salathiel Lovell. Chaloner thought he was just being charged for the fraudulent ticket but then he found out that it was for so much more than that and he began to plead for his life. Can't you hear him behind me? He claimed that finding him guilty would be tantamount to murder but he was indeed found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. What a tale! By the way, the country's actual mint museum is in Flantricent in Wales. Let me know if you'd be interested in a video there. But now it's time to move on from the mint and start exploring the rest of the tower. This building that sits with it is known as the Medieval Palace. This would have been Edward I's royal palace. He'd have moored his royal barge here. Then he would make his way into his royal palace. Edward liked staying here because it has a good view of the river. Let's go inside. We're now entering into the Medieval Palace. I know we're focusing on the oddities today but I just can't resist giving you a quick look at what Edward's bed would have looked like. Kind of reminds me of the great bed of ware at Victoria and Albert Museum. And just like that curation at the V&A, you can also feel all of the different materials used to make the bed. I'm now inside the Lanthorne Tower. This was gutted by a fire sadly in 1774 but it was rebuilt in the 19th century. It was originally the apartments for Henry III's wife Eleanor of Provence. Now they were married when she was just 12 years old. He was 28. But that was common at the time. It was normal for girls to be married that young but they would usually wait a few years to consummate the marriage. Not always though. Just talk to Margaret Beaufort who was Henry VII's mom. Eleanor of Provence didn't actually have her first child until she was 16. It's lovely that they have a little museum here inside of the Lanthorne Tower showing different fun and games and objects that were used by people who lived here. For instance here we have some bone tablemen and dice. They were probably used to play tables. That was a popular board game that later became known as backgammon with a few changes. And here just look at this absolutely beautiful crystal chess piece. It dates to around the year 1000. Edward I gave Eleanor of Castile a chess set like this one made from crystal and jasper in 1286. Wow oh my god it's so beautiful. I love this so much. Look at this little toy knight. It's a knight on horseback. He wears a chainmail shirt and a little helmet. And Edward I actually gave his sons little toy castles and a siege engine so that they would one day grow up to great warriors. And next to it here a bone stylus used to write on waxed tables. And this one's a figure holding a hawk but there's been lots of different styles discovered. This one shows you like a hobby horse. This beautiful little portable altarpiece made of ivory showing scenes from the lives of Mary and Jesus. And Eleanor of Castile and Eleanor of Provence were both known to have small portable altarpieces like this one. Similarly this is called a pix. It's a small box that would have held communion bread blessed by a priest. We're now in the salt tower which was built in the 1230s under Henry III as part of his curtain wall designed to surround the whole tower. Originally it was called Julius Caesar's tower and then Balliol's tower and somehow became known as the salt tower. No one's really sure why but salt was very expensive in the medieval period so it may have been used as an especially secure place to store that seasoning. The tower was long a place to keep different prisoners and we can see some very interesting prisoners graffiti here. You can see a Henry Walpole captured on a secret mission to England in 1593. They carved his name here as well as the Latin names of Saint Peter and Paul along with Saint Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory, the four doctors of the church. A wounded foot carved by a Catholic as a devotional aid and a reminder of the wounds of Christ. Yet another wounded foot. This interesting symbol is a symbol of the society of Jesus left by a Jesuit priest and another one here. Here is one of the most famous pieces of graffiti here in the tower of London, definitely the most famous at the salt tower. Hugh Draper was a Bristolian innkeeper accused of sorcery in 1560. Even though he pleaded not guilty he carved this very witchy chart upon the wall. It says Hugh Draper of Bristol made this spear the 30th day of May 1561. He also said that he was quote very sick and so look it's pretty low down on the floor so maybe he could have been sitting or resting a little bit. Here we can see this letter E within a heart. It's thought to stand for Elizabeth I. It's dated 14th of August 1556 and it's signed by John Baptiste Castiglione. He was Elizabeth's official Italian tutor. John Balliol was also held prisoner in this room. John Balliol was the king of the Scots for three years before Edward I had him removed from the throne. And not just wounded feet also wounded hands here. Same thing a reminder of the wounds of Christ. Fear fortunes flattery, frowl of felicity, despair not in danger, God is defender. Here behind me is the only place in the entire Tower of London where you're going to find mention about Colonel Thomas Blood but I'm going to let Margot Moore of Crown and Kingdom tell you a lot more. Thanks Jess. Today the crown jewels at the Tower of London are kept in what's known as the Jewel House, a former military barracks that's been converted into a vault. Around three million people a year walk into this building through a two-ton, six-inch thick steel door on their way to view this priceless collection that features over 23,000 individual jewels and gemstones. The vault is sealed every night and the jewels are protected by the dozens of staff who live within the tower using security measures so strict we don't actually know what they entail. The jewels have been one of the most important collections in the country for centuries and you'd correctly assume that it would be almost impossible to steal them but that didn't stop one man from giving it his best shot. Centuries ago the care of the collection was put into the hands of a singular man, the Keeper of the Jewels. This was a job for only the most trustworthy of applicants, a position that came with respect, responsibility and no small amount of gravitas, just like being a tour guide. In fact, oftentimes the Keeper did work as a tour guide of sorts, charged not only with the safeguarding of the collection but with allowing visitors the chance to see it. For nearly 200 years the jewels were kept in what's called the Martin Tower in the northeast corner of the complex. The Keeper in the 1670s, a man named Talbot Edwards, lived in a flat above the jewel collection and thought nothing of it when a parson and his wife arrived in April of 1671 asking to see the jewels. But what Edwards didn't know is that this man was no parson. His wife was, in fact, a paid actress and this seemingly innocent meeting would set into motion a chain of events that would shock the nation and baffle historians for centuries. The so-called parson was actually a wanted criminal known as Colonel Blood and here I'll point out that he bestowed the title on himself in a move that I actually kind of admire and he had come to the Tower with the sole intent of casing the joint before planning a heist so bold and so unexpected that we're still talking about it over 350 years later. Blood's attempt to steal the crown jewels was comical, entailing a blind date gone wrong, we've all been there, a man who refused to go down without a fight and a so-called captain running through the Tower of Still, Colonel Blood's attempt to steal the crown jewels was very nearly successful and Talbot Edwards was almost killed during the heist. The plot was foiled by the unexpected arrival of a man who turned out to be a hero, although few people know his name today. After his attempt on the jewels, Colonel Blood was imprisoned but he refused to speak to anybody but the king himself. Their eventual conversation and Blood's strange punishment, or lack thereof to be precise, has been the topic of debate and mystery for centuries with one theory being that the entire messy event could even be linked to how hot King Charles II looked without any clothes on, a theory I find myself wishing to personally investigate. To hear the incredible true story and see if you can solve the mystery yourself, check out my video on Colonel Blood and the theft of the crown jewels on my channel, Crown and Kingdom, linked below. See you there! Now, I think that was much better for our tour than seeing the crown jewels. They're beautiful but they're not really oddities now, are they? Back in the Martin Tower, there's also a little bit of graffiti here from Ambrose Brookwood. He was one of the lesser known gunpowder plotters who worked alongside Guy Fox. He was arrested on the 8th of November 1606 and brought here first. He pled guilty and on 30th of January, he was tied to a hurdle and dragged from the tower to Westminster. There, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered with the rest of them. We're just about to go inside the Royal Fusiliers Museum. I told you there was a lot of museums here! Just before we do, have a look here. This is an iron nine-pounder gun. It dates to around the year 1700 and it was probably cast in Sussex, but that's not why I'm telling you about it. No, you can see here that it was formerly used as a bollard on Tower Hill, a practice that started as early as the 17th century. You might remember that I included a cannon bollard in my Borough Market oddities video, and some people thought that it was an urban legend. No, it is true. It's really more for a military buff. That said, every museum has oddities. You just have to sniff them out, and I have found a few. Like this here. Yes, you are correct. This is a bust of Adolf Hitler. And here, another one of Benito Mussolini. These two were brought back to England by the Royal Fusiliers in 1947 as war trophies. My favorite room, though, has to be here in the 18th century. It's got a few really strange things here. For instance, this big iron boot. It was used to uncover a defaulter in the regiment. An iron boot was applied to the leg of our reginald, who was suspected of aggravating a wound in order to avoid his duties. After 12 days of wearing this boot, his wound healed, and so it was proven that he had been the one who had been picking at it to aggravate it. I don't know if that really proves it, but he received 500 lashes as a punishment. You'll notice that one of the words on the boot is a cure. There's a few other neat things in here, too. This letter here is a court-martial proceedings for Private William Harris. He was accused of pawning his uniform, and Private Richard Robberer was accused of being drunk on duty. This letter up here is from Colonel R. Y. Shipley to his mother. He describes being shot, quote, hit at last, my dear mama, like a woodcock in the thigh. The ball kindly came out the other side. I have preserved it, and I hope to bring it home. He wrote this in 1854. A sad reminder of the Crimean War here, this grave marker brought back sometime between 1853 and 1856. I'm not sure if that means someone took it from a grave, or they just had an extra marker left over. And some shot here picked up at the Battle of Alma. Certainly strange and macabre enough for any oddities tour. Look here. This is a crucifix carved from a bullet during World War II. This white tablecloth used by German troops to waive surrender at Monte Cosimo in Italy in 1944. I just love this gun cannon so much. Just look at it. It weighs five and three quarter tons, and it was commissioned by the Order of St. John. That's 5,842 kilograms. Just look at the way that the dragon's head meets with that face in the middle. Its decoration includes heraldic devices, bands of cupids and vines, and Saint Michael overthrowing Satan. It was brought to England from Malta around 1800. The cast iron carriage, by the way, was then made later in 1827 in Kent. It includes the arms of Malta and scenes from the island's history. And the gun's breech rests on an iron coin formed as a Maltese dog. The cannon itself is probably Flemish and dates to 1607. And just look at that amazing Maltese dog on the end. This is one of my favorite things at the As I mentioned, the Tower of London is the precursor to the London Zoo, and there's an entire little exhibition here called the Royal Beast. I love the detail of the bear footprints on the floor. From the 1200s to 1835, as visitors here, we would have gazed upon a wondrous collection of exotic animals, including lions, an elephant, and even a polar bear. Collections of animals like this were called menageries. It all started back in 1235, when Henry III was presented with three leopards, which were probably actually lions, by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. He decided that he liked having exotic animals at his palace, and so he started collecting. The King of Norway gifted him a polar bear in 1252, and he received an African elephant from the King of France a few years later. Poor polar bear, whose name may have been Lin, he was muzzled and chained, but allowed to swim in the river on a long lead to catch fish. The elephant, who was a popular attraction for Londoners, had a new 40 foot by 20 foot elephant house built, and his own keeper, but he still died just a few years later. The lions did better. These sculptures are here on the site of the Lion Tower. Over time, many lion cubs were born here. Perhaps as the result of the Lion Tower's success, Henry III's crest featured three lions. Over the next centuries, the lions did attack and even kill a few keepers and visitors. After 1700, British colonization of India and other places around the world resulted in a new influx of menagerie residents, including Miss Jenny, the tower's Bengal cheetah. She would steal umbrellas and anything else she could get her hands on. The snakes were kept warm in a blanket by the fire. Sadly, the tower's ostrich was fed a nail, and it, quote, stopped him up, and he died that way. There was a belief at the time that ostriches ate iron, so visitors would throw nails at him. After a massive decline, there was a surge in interest when new head keeper Alfred Copse took over, giving the menagerie a new life. However, the public was growing wary of menageries like this one. The horrific execution of an elephant called Chuni, owned by a private menagerie, highlighted the perils and the cruelty of keeping animals in a place like this. The London Zoological Society was founded in 1826, and in 1831, William IV ordered the transfer of the tower menagerie to the London Zoo, and the transfer was completed by 1835. The lion tower here was demolished. Now the only famous animals here at the tower are the ravens, of course. In 2010, Historic Royal Palaces commissioned artist Kendra Haste to create 13 galvanized wire sculptures, and they're all displayed near where they were actually kept. Yeah, I found it weird to find out that the menagerie wasn't kept in one central location. They really were dotted all around the palace. In fact, there was even a room where you could just play with monkeys that were wandering around. People got hurt. Now it's a great time to talk about the ravens at the tower. Ravens are a big part of Tower of London lore. According to lore and legend, there needs to be a minimum of six ravens here at the tower at all times, but they have seven, to have a spare just in case. Because if the ravens leave the tower, the kingdom will fall. Well, so says the legend. By the way, they eat dead mice and blood-soaked biscuits, and they'll also gladly eat whatever treat they snatch out of your hands. Now the origins of the legend of the ravens at the tower are not clear, but let's go over some of the best theories. Charles II returned to England after being exiled, after his father was executed, and he was understandably very suspicious and superstitious. Now when he returned from the continent and became king, he gave permission for astronomer John Flamsteed to open the first iteration of the Royal Observatory here, and apparently Flamsteed complained that the ravens were getting in the way of his viewing of the stars and the sky. So Charles said, let's get rid of the birds. But then he heard about a local wise woman who'd had a dream, and he wanted to know more. She knew that he was a bird lover, and she said that should the ravens ever leave the tower, the king would lose his throne and the monarchy would crumble. I actually have this book, a gift from my lovely friend Joanna. They're fed a very luxurious diet, and no, they are not forced to stay here. Because they're semi-tamed, you wouldn't get your pet dog or cat at home and just open the back door and just chuck it out of the street, would you? Because they just won't do very well. So our ravens don't do very well. We feed them in the cage in the morning, we let them out, they do their own thing during the day on the wall, chasing the school kids, it's all great fun. You can hear the school kids screaming as they go into their sandwiches. Unfortunately Poppy's not here at the moment, she's the main offender. And then, well, as it gets dark, they usually go back in the cages, you just shut the doors and they're in. That's it really. How long do they live? 15 to 20 years? 25 years? Look at this absolutely massive, this is how big ravens can get. It's huge, look compared to my hand. This is the previous raven master, Christopher Scaife, but the current raven master is Barney Chandler. Barney raises them from the time that they're first hatched, and they adore and listen to him. He certainly wouldn't listen to me. Now I struggled on whether to include Sir Walter Rowley in this video or in my video about torture and execution, and I made the decision to place his story in the other video, simply because he was ultimately executed. But this little detail, this definitely belongs in our oddities video. Sir Walter Rowley, a true renaissance man, a famous explorer, soldier, sailor, courtier, and poet, including The History of the World, a poem he wrote during his 13 years of imprisonment here in the Bloody Tower, though it was then called the Garden Tower, and this indeed is his garden outside that he was allowed to tend. I'll talk a lot more about him in the upcoming video. While they were preparing to mark the 400th anniversary of Sir Walter Rowley's execution and curate this new display, tower historians noticed some peeling paint here, and they discovered this wall painting of a man's head, or maybe it's a woman's head. Based on the Bloody Tower's architectural history and the materials used here, they dated the painting to the early 17th century, and so it may have been done by Rowley himself. Maybe it's even a self-portrait. The head is in profile and adorned with a laurel wreath. It was completely hidden from view by layers of white paint and plaster, and there might even be more drawings under there. This really reminds me of the discovery of the Byward Angel at the beginning of our tour, and I think it's the perfect place for us to wrap up today. How wonderful is it to be inside this little turret all by myself right now? Well, that's the end of our tour. I hope that you enjoyed it, and I hope that you'll come back for the next Tower of London video that I'm making in a couple of weeks' time, the White Tower, England's oldest museum. I'll see you the next time I'm at the museum.