London: the Tower and the city

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 17

London: the Tower and the city

The Tower 10781978. By Derek Wilson. Hamish Hamilton. 257 pp. Illustrated. Index. $15.40. I History of London. By Robert Gray. Hutchinson. 352 pp. Illustrated. Index. $7.80 (paperback), $14.05 (hardback). (Reviewed by Cherry Neame) In 1978 the Tower of London celebrated its 900th anniversary, for although there has been a fortress on the site since at least Roman times, the existing buildings date from 1078 when William the Conqueror began the White Tower. This book tells the story of the Tower through those nine centuries. Dramatic incidents at the Tower are readily brought to mind: the murder of the princes (1483), the imprisonment of Sir Walter Raleigh, and Colonel Blood’s attempt to steal the Crown Jewels. Many of the buildings’ other functions are not so well known. The Outer Bailey contained a menagerie where lions and mastiffs were put to savage each other to entertain James I. By the mid-eighteenth century the menagerie included tigers, an ostrich, Ind a polar bear. For its first five and a half centuries the Tower served as a Royal fortress, a Royal palace and a Royal prison. Kings and Queens exercised their prerogative in sending subjects to the Tower for short or long spells. By the mid-seventeenth century the monarch’s writ was not the only authority for commital. The House of Commons had taken over the Royal prerogative and 1 undreds of prisoners, potential or ruspected opponents of the Government, were detained. It was, one might imagine from the iriipressive list of names, virtually impossible to succeed in public life without spending some time in the Tower. (The last political prisoner to be held there was Rudolf Hess in 1941.) The palace within the Tower also provided a place of safety for royalty. Palace apartments lay within an enclosed courtyard, successive walls and gateways, and a drawbridge crossing the moat. These gave an appearance of impregnability, but the security of the fortress depended upon the reliability of the men who kept it. Over the centuries, many enemies .of the Crown were to break into or out,

usually as a result of inefficiency or collusion on the part of the garrison. By the end of the fourteenth century the Tower had become the principal store for the records of most of the courts and state offices. The volume of these, lack of organisation, and the need for more space for storage necessitated a new home for the records in 1867. But well before then the popular attraction bf the Tower was established. Visitors were attracted by old armour, wild animals, instruments of torture, a fabulous collection of plate and jewels, and perhaps a glimpse of some celebrated prisoner behind barred windows. Even today the Tower is Britain’s principal tourist attraction. Whereas- “The Tower”, keeps the Tower of London firmly in the centre of the picture, “A History of London” has a larger frame and covers a far longer time. The manner in which the town grew is the prime theme. London began when the Roman legions bridged the Thames in AD43 and for 15 centuries was a walled town which flourished because of its position at the point where land and sea communications concentrated. Not until the sixteenth century did the urban sprawl begin which engulfed not just Westminster and nearby villages, but eventually huge tracts of surrounding counties. London grew haphazardly, according to the whims of private developers

who were relatively unhindered by legal restraints. In Medieval London, the houses were set at crazy angles to the street, jutting out further at each story, almost touching other buildings across the street. The growth of the metropolis continued in concentric circles; draining population from the old to the new suburbs uhtil there are now fears of a vacuum in the centre. Robert Gray takes to task the nineteenth century property developers who manipulated those few planning laws which had come into existence. He berates them for a “tide of mean, ugly, unplanned building” which brought them great profits. Gray’s style of writing is, in places, very colourful. He devotes one chapter to the years between 1485 and 1666 when London achieved commercial and political ascendancy over the rest of the country. The Thames was choked with rivercraft ferrying passengers and international trade vessels. Visitors were apparently shocked by the easily misinterpreted cry of, “Oars, oars,” with which the watermen advertised their services. The same chapter devotes some space to the “Great Plague” and the “Great Fire” where it is noted “that Monday night Pepys had to make do with the remains of Sunday’s dinner — having no fire, Pepys explained.” The book has many other well chosen quotations included, often tongue in cheek. The result is an entertaining guide and history.