My Cuppa Irish Tea: London - Tower of London-Part II

The Crown Jewels, which are part of the Royal Collection, are displayed here and guarded heavily. They have been here in the Tower since the 14th century. They used to be kept at Westminster Abbey until they were stolen in 1303.

The guard at the Jewel House

The Jewel House

Entrance to the Crown Jewels

They have a moving escalator so you can't look at the jewels too long! Ha!

The case around the jewels is a 2 inch thick shatterproof glass. The UK has put millions of pounds into the security of the jewels in the house. Although attempts have been made to steal the Crown Jewels no one has ever succeeded.

This is the Imperial State Crown. This is the most famous of all the crowns. This was re-made for the coronation of The Queen's father, King George VI in 1937 and has over 3,000 gems. This crown has many famous gemstones on it. This crown is also worn for the state opening of Parliament. There are so many jewels its just amazing and you have to wonder...where did these all come from? We all know some of them were stolen from other countries, but its crazy how much all this has to be worth.

Imperial Crown

When we were leaving the Jewel House they closed the gates so that they could have their lunch break. Check out those gates and how thick the walls are? Wow! The children really enjoyed looking at all these jewels. K now wants to marry into the royal family so that she can wear some of these and L just wants all the tiaras!

I did not get a lot of pictures inside here because you were not allowed to take pictures. So these few are from when I snuck a few pictures. I know...I'm bad! We then walked through the big White Tower. When I was here 4 years ago they were just starting to put exhibits together in here. It now looks like it is done because all the floors were full.

The White Tower - the original Tower of London

The first floor was full of armor and lots of it! T had a great time looking at all the exhibits and different sizes of armor. They even had armor for little boys.

This was the chamber room. It was originally one of the White Tower's most important chambers. It was secure, next to the large hall and equipped with a fireplace and toilets. Its windows were originally much smaller. It was probably used by the king's officials, who ran the Tower of London, and sometimes by the king himself.

The Chamber Room

This is St. John's Chapel that is on the 2nd floor of the White Tower. It was built around 1077. The chapel has a bare appearance which would have been typical in the Norman period. This is considered London's oldest church in the city. In the 13th century, during Henry III's reign, the chapel was decorated with lots of ornaments, and stained glass windows that depicted the Virgin Mary and Holy Trinity.

St. John's Chapel

more fun medieval doors

medieval windows

the execution block

walking back down to the first floor

the artillery room

After the artillery room you are dumped into a big gift shop. Surprise! We all had a great time looking around. L wanted all three of these bears but I told her she had to pick one of them. Remember she is the animal LOVER! She then carried the three of them around the store until she decided - Henry VIII bear, Queen bear, and the Beefeater bear. At the checkout she finally decided on the "purple" (her favorite color) Queen bear.

You can even buy Henry VIII and the 6 wives Christmas ornaments

T found something that he really wanted at this shop. But I made him think about it over lunch because it was so expensive and he would be using up almost all his birthday money. So we went over to the little cafe that they have recently opened up inside the tower. It was very nice and we all just got little snacks to split. By this time we had been in the Tower of London for a little over 3 hours and we still did not see everything. We honestly could have been there all day. This is one of my favorite sites in London and the children loved it too. I had to literally force them to leave because we had to see other things.

the cafe in the Tower

After lunch T decided he still wanted the thing that he saw. I had to laugh inside because I could NOT believe that he had picked this out. But honestly I could see him playing with this all the time and having it the rest of his life. Here it is, "Henry VIII and his 6 wives".