Tower Hill

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Within the space of Trinity Square the first permanent scaffold on Tower Hill was set up in the reign of Edward IV., 1465, but the first execution recorded here was that of Sir Simon Burley in 1388. Here also were beheaded, among others, Dudley, the minister of Henry VII. (1510), his son the Duke of Northumberland (1553), his grandson, Lord Guildford Dudley (1554), Cromwell Earl of Essex (1540), More and Fisher (1535), Surrey (1547), and his son Norfolk (1572), Strafford (1641), and Archbishop Laud (1645), and the Scotch Lords in 1716, 1746, and 1747, the last being Simon, Lord Lovat.

The Tower Moat is immediately before us. It was drained in 1843 and has been made use of as a parade ground. On 7th January, 1928, at 1.30 a.m., a tidal wave swept over the wharf destroying portions of the retaining walls of the Moat, filling the Moat completely and flooding the Byward Tower to a depth of four feet.

As we approach the entrance, we have a good view of the fortifications. On the extreme left are the Brass Mount and North Bastion. In the middle is Legge's Mount. To the right is the entrance gateway. The highest building behind is the White Tower, easily distinguished by its four turrets.

In front of it are the Devereux, Beauchamp, and Bell Towers, the residences of the Governor and of the Yeoman Gaoler being in the gabled and red tiled houses between the last two. From one of these windows Lady Jane Grey saw her husband's headless body brought in from Tower Hill, by the route we now traverse; and this part of the ramparts is still called Princess Elizabeth's Walk, as she used it during her captivity in 1554.



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