Well, I’m pleased that I finally got around to visiting the 14th century Jewel Tower, one of the last remnants of the old Palace of Westminster, but I can’t say that it will ever be the highlight of anyone’s tour of the capital.
The Jewel Tower is the tall stone structure that stands at the parliament end of College Green (where broadcasters do their pieces to camera), over the road from the Victoria Tower and right by the garden wall of Westminster Abbey. (In fact, the tower is on a portion of land taken from the Abbey.)
Constructed in the reign of Edward III it was built, as the name implies, to securely house valuables – not just ‘jewels’, but silver plates, bowls, cups etc, and rich vestments – belonging to the royal household. It stood within the ‘Privy Palace’, the private area of the palace, and was protected on three sides by a moat. There are a couple of excellent models on the second floor that show the tower and the surrounding area today and in the 15th century.
By the mid 16th century the tower had become a sort of general storage for unused royal ‘stuff’ – clothing, bed and table linen, furniture; an inventory of 1547 records “tenne chamber pottes of pewter” – but by 1600 it had had a makeover and was the residence of the Clerk and Keeper of the Records of Parliament, and it was where the records of the House of Lords were kept.
Following the rebuilding of Parliament after the immensely destructive fire of 1834, the records were transferred from the Jewel Tower to the newly built Victoria Tower, and in 1869 the building was again repurposed to house the Standards Department of the Board of Trade (the “weights and measures” department). That remained there until the 1930s when the increasingly poor condition of the tower, couple with vibrations from the growth of nearby traffic, meant that the department relocated.
It’s a fascinating history, one topped off with the tower being damaged by incendiaries in WW2, and I was also amazed to read that the excavated moat around the building was frequently filled with water right up until the 1990s (bring that back, please), but there is unfortunately not a great deal to see as a visitor, other than the fabric of the tower itself.
The cafe on the ground floor seems to get quite a bit of trade (one can either look at the medieval vaulted ceiling in the cafe, or sit out in the area which was once the ‘King’s Garden’ of the palace), but for most of my 30 minutes or so of pottering around inside I was the only person in the space. That seclusion (and the views of the Abbey from the windows) might be one of the few reasons I’d consider revisiting.
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