Useful things to know before your visit
Address: Jewel Tower, Abingdon Street, Westminster SW1P 3JX. Telephone: 0207 222 2219. Website: english-heritage.org
How much do the tickets cost?
Online in advance (weekday): Adult £6, seniors (aged 65+) from £6, and children (5-17 years) from £3. Infants under-5 are free. Family rates are available from £10 (1ad+up to 3ch) and £17 (max 2ad+up to 3ch) – Online in advance (weekend): Adult £7, seniors (aged 65+) from £6, and children are from £3, and infants are free. Family rates are available from £11 (1ad+up to 3ch) and £19 (2ad+up to 3ch) – On the day (weekday): Adult £8, seniors (aged 65+) from £7, and children (5-17 years) from £4. Infants under-5 are free. Family rates are available from £12 (1ad+up to 3ch) and £20 (2ad+up to 3ch) – On the day (weekend): Adult £9, seniors (aged 65+) from £8, and children (5-17 years) from £4. Infants under-5 are free. Family rates are available from £13 (1ad+up to 3ch) and £22 (2ad+up to 3ch).
What are the opening hours?
Opening times are 10am to 4pm (Sat-Sun, Jan to Mar and Nov to Dec); 10am to 5pm (Wed-Sun, Apr to May); 10am to 5pm (Mon-Sun, Jun to Oct). Last entry is 30 minutes before closing time.
How much time do you need?
A typical visit to the Jewel Tower takes 30 minutes.
Which buses go to the Jewel Tower?
Bus routes 11, 24, 148 and 211 all stop close by.
Which is the closest train station?
The nearest station is Westminster, which connects with the Circle District and Jubilee lines. It only takes four minutes to walk to the Jewel Tower.
Which other attractions are nearby?
These attractions are all within 15 minutes walk of the Jewel Tower: Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Churchill War Rooms, Downing Street, SEA LIFE London Aquarium, Garden Museum, Banqueting House, St. James’s Park, London Dungeon, Horse Guards, London Eye, Household Cavalry Museum and Guards’ Museum.
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There are only four survivors from the medieval Palace of Westminster: the Jewel Tower, Westminster Hall (which you can visit on a tour of Parliament), plus a cloister and chapel beneath St. Stephen’s Hall (both inaccessible to the likes of you and me).
Photo: londondrum.comAll four survived the fire of 1512 which levelled half the building, escaped the Great Fire of London which petered out past St. Paul’s, then Whitehall Palace burned down around them and the rest was destroyed in the big fire of 1834. Then they built the Houses of Parliament on top which took a couple of direct hits in the Blitz.
Edward III’s treasure house in the Palace of Westminster
Because of its name lots of tourists come here thinking it was home to the Crown Jewels but they’ve always been locked up safe and sound inside the Tower of London. The Jewel Tower was where Edward III kept all of his other valuables – his beautifully decorated bowls, goblets, carved cups, silver plates, feathers and gems.
He persuaded the monks of Westminster Abbey to hand over the land that butted up against the back of his privy palace (the residential part that was full of chambers and chapels for the Royal Family, away from all the rowdy Lords and lawyers in Westminster Hall), then he dug a defensive moat around it to keep out the thieves.
By the time Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 it had been demoted to a cupboard for his furniture and clothes, and later on it became a storehouse for all the Acts of Parliament made over the road.
Board of Trade Standards Department - Testing Centre
Photo: londondrum.comAfter the big fire of 1834 the parliamentary archives were shifted into the newly built Houses of Parliament and the tower became a testing centre for the Board of Trade Standards Department. They were the scientists who had the job of telling you how much an ounce weighed, how long a metre was, and how many inches you could take for a mile.
One of the rooms has a few tables laid out with the scientists’ old scales and a wooden box of rods and pipettes.
Museum exhibition inside the Jewel Tower
Photo: londondrum.comThe rest of the tower houses a little exhibition at the top of some winding stone stairs (the kind of stairs that makes you realise how unfit you are) and the whole thing consists of two sparsely decorated rooms and a couple of tiny little side rooms.
All they’ve got in the first room are a couple of info boards with a timeline and a glass cabinet full of archaeology that they pulled out of the moat (a few clay pipes and busted beakers, mugs and jugs, that sort of thing). There’s a couple of pottery bottles, a rusted old Anglo-Saxon sword, and a row of stone capitals from the tops of the columns in Westminster Hall.
Photo: londondrum.comA tiny little side room has a few straw-filled crates to give you an idea of what Edward’s treasure house might have looked like, and the other one has a couple of laminated pictures of the old parliamentary archives, including Charles I’s death warrant and the Act of Union between England and Scotland, but that’s literally it.
If you read every single word in the building then you’ll probably be finished in twenty minutes – that’s how small the exhibition is.
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Pat&M We enjoyed our visit here and had a nice cup of tea afterwards. It is small but very interesting to visit these historic buildings that are often overlooked. (reply)
HBury The Jewel Tower is worth a spot in your photo album if you’re already grabbing one of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Why not? It’s right there waiting to be photographed. It’s tucked away and out of sight and lots of people miss it, but it’s these little places that are full of history and character that make London such a joy. (reply)
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