Prince Edward Explores The Curious History Of The River Thames | Crown & Country | Real Royalty

this channel is part of the history hit Network [Music] the River Thames must rank amongst the most famous rivers in the world like so many it is more accustomed to pleasure craft than Tradesmen these days yet many of these vessels reflect a time when the river played a much more vital role especially in a life of one of the greatest cities in the world London the story of London has always been linked with the River Thames and at the heart of it the pool of London the pool is the main Junction between the Thames the port and the river as the principal thoroughfare through London and for centuries it's been the job of a special company of men the watermen to Ferry anybody and everybody up and down as well as across the river and that includes just about every single one of my ancestors [Music] [Music] all right [Music] since the days when kings first started building palaces along the banks of the river they've used the Thames as a means of transport exactly when such travel Arrangements were made formal is difficult to say but there is evidence to show that Royal watermen were around as far back as King John it's thought that he ride by barge at Runnymede to sign the Magna Carta Edward II in the 14th century was attacked by pirates on the river Fleet and was protected by his watermen and it could have been at this point that they were made by Royal appointment [Music] on the whole the river was by far the safest means of travel and there is only one recorded loss of life from a royal barge in 1264 Elena of Provence the wife of Henry III was being rowed along the Thames when she was stoned by a crowd on London Bridge a barge was sunk and one of the Queen's ladies of the bed chamber was drowned [Music] in the time of Henry VII there were 13 royal palaces in and around London nine of them were along the River from Greenwich in the East to Windsor in the west all of which kept the Royal watermen extremely busy foreign hit is a streaming platform that is just for history fans with fantastic documentaries covering fascinating figures and moments in history from all over the world we've got unrivaled access to the world's leading historians with hundreds of documentaries featuring everything from Boudicca to the British royal family we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts as you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and a real royalty fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use code real royalty at checkout it's difficult to imagine now what the river used to be like but not that long ago it was almost twice as wide and there were hardly any Bridges Tower Bridge for instance was only opened in 1894. in fact until the 18th century London Bridge was the only one across the river for this reason boats and skilled Horsemen were acquired to Ferry people and goods around foreign the watermen looked after people and the lightermen were responsible for cargo literally making ships lighter ever became busier it became more dangerous and needed regulating in 1514 Henry VII established the Waterman company the Waterman's Hall at Saint Mary's at Hill in the heart of the city is their headquarters from here they regulate the trade and Tradesmen all watermen have to wear special arm badges to signify that they have been trained in 1716 the first race was organized for Apprentice Waterman known as doggett's coat and badge race it's become the oldest sporting event in the country with a record for the longest unbroken run and is named after Tom Doggett who was an actor manager at Drury Lane Doggett was a comedian or a seterist our surgery would say today and on the anniversary of the first of the Hanoverian Kings in 1715 he inaugurated this race for a coat of orange with a silver badge on its arm apparently he he left the theater and there was no boats waiting to be hired from the local steps so he came across London Bridge to Swansea as old Swan stairs and there were six men waiting with their with their torches and when he said that he wanted to be rode to Chelsea some nearly five miles upriver Against The Wind and The Tide on this particular bad evening five of them refused him but one young boy who has just three of his master just got his freedom said he would and so Doggett set the rules of the race around those elements he said there's a maximum of six can Row for my coat they must all be young men just free of their Mastery in the first year of finishing their apprenticeship and the race will be between those two points ottoman have launched another Thames tradition the Tudor pull which like the doggett's race sees many of their members recreating the journeys of their forebears [Music] thank you our journey starts at London Bridge the present Bridge was only built in 1968 after its predecessor had been sold to the United States of America the people who bought it were very disappointed on its arrival as they thought they had bought Tower Bridge London Bridge has been replaced a good many times since it was first conceived by the Romans the first Bridge across the Thames was built by them in ad53 but it was spectacularly destroyed in 1014 by the Norse King Olaf apparently when he attacked the bridge they threw Stones down on him so Olaf tore down the Riverside houses and used the timber to make protective rooms tied ropes onto the powers of the bridge and got his ultimate to row as hard as they could until the bridge collapsed and that they say is how the song London Bridge is falling down was coined the medieval Bridge had buildings on it as well as fortified gates at each end where the heads of traitors would be spiked for all to take heed markets were held on the bridge and sometimes the congestion was so bad it could take an hour to cross to alleviate the problem a rule of road was introduced making it compulsory for carts and coaches to pass one another on the driver's right it's a rule we maintain to this day at one point the bridge had 19 arches and acted almost like a weir in very hard Winters this caused the river to freeze over the watermen would organize Frost fares to compensate for their loss of earnings they were impromptu events as an official Fair needed a royal Charter but that didn't stop Charles II and his family from visiting the fairs and buying mementos [Music] Upstream from London Bridge are some of London's most famous landmarks to the West Cleopatra's Needle is the most ancient monument in London originally made in about 1475 BC it's 60 feet high and weighs 186 tons it was presented in 1819 by the Turkish Viceroy of Egypt to celebrate Nelson's victory over Napoleon on the Nile it cost fifteen thousand pounds to transport and was nearly lost at sea while being towed in an enormous cylindrical pontoon foreign it was erected in 1878 and it has a Victorian Time Capsule buried underneath it which contains a rather odd assortment of objects ranging from the mundane a copy of that day's newspaper to the extraordinary a section of recently invented submarine cable to the bizarre a set of 12 photographs of the best looking women of the day almost alongside Cleopatra's Needle on the embankment is the statue of Queen Boudicca commissioned by Queen Victoria but not built until 1902 it celebrates the legendary Rebel leader and National heroine Boudicca led the icini tribe against the Roman Empire in which London was burnt to the ground she took poison rather than fall into the enemy's hands her Legend had a particular resonance in Edwardian Britain with a rise of the suffragette movement further to the West is a symbol of Britain's growing industrial might Vauxhall Bridge was constructed in 1816. it was the first on the Thames to be made of iron some of the design work is remarkably ornate with carved statues showing industry arts and the Sciences Vauxhall Bridge was known as Regents Bridge because its construction was publicly encouraged by the prince Regent to provide access to the popular Vauxhall Gardens on the South Bank a favorite haunt of his [Music] Jonathan tires who was a proprietor took a lease on the gardens in 1726 for 125 pounds a year and he opened it to the public and they could come in and they could wander around but there was no entertainment they had to make their own entertainment and they had to bring their own food it wasn't terribly popular [Music] in 1732 he reopened it having designed the gardens and put a lot of effort into making arches and Cascades and building supper boxes [Music] and he opened it with a radotto which was a form of a masquerade ball and the prince of Wales came and from then on it just took off the idea was in masquerade that you could come and nobody would know who you were which is a great thing in those days because it was very difficult to go from one class to the other whereas if you were all dressed in masks nobody knew who you were that you could cross go across the barriers and on the invitations it would say dress as you fancy which is how fancy dress became known today the Prince of Wales as far as we know wasn't involved financially but he was very involved socially and he came every night bringing his court with him and he had his own pavilion here where he would sit and eat and have all his friends around him and the public would wander up and down in front of him and watch him it would be very exciting because it was the only entertainment really that the londoners had in during the summer and it would be absolutely electric it would be very exciting people rushing around and talking and meeting friends and there'll be music and people singing and waiters rushing around with Trey's drink they had queer exhibitions very strange people one was a lady with a man's head they also had art exhibitions in the Rotunda which was one of the first it exhibitions ever so it was very popular because they changed the paintings and the Rotunda was built so that if it rained which it did regularly they could go inside on a very popular night about 2 000 people would visit the garden of the night and there would be traffic jams horse and carriage traffic jams from Lambeth Palace right up to the entrance [Music] our journey now takes us towards the green spaces of Battersea and Chelsea over the centuries many characters especially writers and artists have made Chelsea their home and Cheney walk has more blue plaques than any other Street in the country [Music] however one of the best known street names in Chelsea is Kings Road in Charles II's day this was the private route of the king from Hampton Court to Westminster public demand forced him to open it girls did leave one other rather impressive Legacy in Chelsea the Royal Hospital Legend has it that Nel guinn was responsible for the building romantic but untrue however she was one of the first patrons and donated 200 pounds to the cause the Royal Hospital at Chelsea was the first in the country it was inspired by the hotel de zanvaleid in Paris established by the French King Louis XIV it was set up exclusively for servicemen from the British army to return although they are better known these days as Chelsea pensioners there are one or two mysteries about the building Christopher Wren was the architect but no plans have ever survived and it took 10 years to build only being completed in William and Mary's Reign so that the founder Charles II never saw the completed building it was founded in 1682 it opened its doors officially to the first pensioners in 1692 and so 10 years is quite a time um I think the reasons for this were perhaps they're twofold um in the first place uh it was simply to gather the necessary funds to build what both in those days and in today's terms is a fairly sort of large establishment uh and so basically it was up to the generosity of Charles II himself and a number of his close friends in particular one called uh Stephen Fox who was a pay Master General and they dipped into their own pockets and from their private funds they produced uh the the money needed certainly to get the work going but another later paymaster General almost put paid these plans single-handedly in 1685 the Earl of ranola was appointed as paymaster general and he really sort of embezzled Royal Hospital funds uh and he used them to his own purposes partly to maintain a lifestyle which he he rather enjoyed partly he built himself a very large magnificent house on the grounds here and apart from a specific use of funds in that way he also over the years managed to lay hands on a good part of what is now the Royal Hospital grounds even though some of the gardens still bear his name fortunately ranola's fraud was discovered and the future of the hospital was saved nowadays the Chelsea pensioners enjoying a great deal of freedom but there are still some strict dress regulations when they're in the Royal hospital here in the grounds then they have to be in uniform normally that will mean the blue uniform there's a working dress once out of the royal hospital they can simply wear civilian clothes outside an area quite close to the Royal Hospital if they were in uniform then they have to wear their scarlet and they're all anyway wear their Scarlett if for example they're visiting and in certainly in a sense if they are sort of representing the Royal Hospital at some occasion or regimental occasion or a local occasion or something like that hello again most people would assume that a Chelsea pensioner must be a man however there have been women pensioners the history said there are about three but one in particular was a woman with the name Hannah Schnell another history is that her husband Neil treated her so she borrowed her brother's uniform and went back and joined up in his regiment and somehow she was in England and she fell foul of the sergeant uh because we're very spiteful in those days it's weren't they used to take the Mickey out of an ill treat we're very well known to treat him and he he gave her a hundred lashes and he lushed a hundred times but instead of that he went to 500 and because she's a woman and she was very books of woman indeed she hid her breast from him and they never found out through then that she was a woman but she was so fed up with serving in the Army then in England that she then deserted and went to Portsmouth and joined the Royal Marines and she went into the Far East she then got came back home and on a way to Gibraltar she found out that her husband had died so she thought well that's it I've finished with the Army now and when I get back to England I'm going to own up and she did and she owned up the fact that she was a woman the British army being what it was because she was a very brave woman and they recognized her for a bravery and they gave her a pension of five pence a day and she was also given a grant of 30 pounds a year I'd understand they gave her a blue uniform and gave her a house up in Pimlico a little village just up the road and when she died she's buried in our Cemetery up here where 10 000 other Chelsea pensions are buried that is Hannah Schnell it's a great story isn't it and she was a very very brave woman there's no getting away from me and so how long did she actually spend in in the in the armed forces I think about seven years all together over a period of seven years and was never discovered no it was never discovered although she never lived in the hospital Hannah Schnell was allowed to wear the uniform throughout her retirement which she spent running a public house in wapping called the female Warrior she died in London in 1792 and by her own request was laid to rest in an unmarked grave amongst her comrades of the Royal Hospital Chelsea being the original Royal hospital was the inspiration behind Greenwich Hospital the major difference being that Chelsea still very much functions as a residential home for retired servicemen both Chelsea and Greenwich hospitals have provided the setting for the lying in state of their respective Heroes Greenwich for Nelson Chelsea for the Duke of Wellington [Music] held each year on the anniversary of Charles II's birth all the pensioners have to parade called Oak apple day and every pensioner wears an oak leaf in deference to their founder who is reputed to have hidden in an oak tree after the battle of Worcester in 1651. foreign [Music] a member of the present royal family is always there to take the salute reinforcing the hospital's association with the crown and maintaining a 300 year old tradition foreign [Music] foreign foreign [Music] however as Traditions go especially those connected with the crown 300 years is actually relatively recent [Music] in the case of the royal watermen they have a small tradition which probably represents some six or seven hundred years of transporting and protecting the symbol of state [Music] every year on the occasion of the state opening of parliament the Imperial State Crown is escorted by Royal watermelon to and from the Palace of Westminster foreign Jewels are conveyed by road but for centuries it was by barge along the river and by maintaining this tradition the crown acknowledges the role of the royal watermen but more especially the unique relationship between the crown the capital and the Thames some nine centuries ago William the first better known as the Conqueror chose to make London his Capital since then this part of the country has changed out of all recognition as the town grew into the capital city of the United Kingdom of Great Britain we are also familiar with today the True Heart of this sprawling City Europe's biggest home to 8 million is right here on the River Thames and the stretch of water below me known as the pool of London and just as a river is the reason London flourished here so the story of the crown and the capital is inextricably linked to the Thames [Music] [Music] it's difficult now to believe that this is where London started but the ancient Celtic name for this area means hill by the pool Celtic word was Linden very close to our own London the hill better known as Tower Hill has all but disappeared amongst the buildings but the pool remains it's still used as a harbor although today we call it the pool of London [Music] the Tower of London is a clear demonstration of the importance of this natural Harbor originally built by William the Conqueror this Royal Fortress has been guarding this site for over 900 years [Music] the Thames and its trade was the principal factor in London's importance and growth from the days of King ethelred in the 9th century duties have been levied on Goods passing up River the king's Customs officers had their headquarters at billingsgate from here they assessed and levied tolls on the river's merchandise to give you some idea of the value of this trade Richard the first sold the rights of the river to the city to help pay for his Crusades in 1197. he raised nearly 400 000 pounds in today's money trade boomed in The Tudor period Elizabeth the first introduced the idea of legal keys this resulted in 20 shippers being granted official monopolies to land taxable goods between London Bridge and where tarbridge is now by the end of the 18th century the river was in chaos in the 1780s London was the one of the biggest ports in the world and at one time 1770 ships were thrown to Moor on boys and Mooring areas which could only cope with 545 ships and so it was quite chaotic on the river in fact the line of ships went up River from London Bridge two miles and down river four miles and when the cargo was eventually unloaded and sometimes the ships had to wait one ship had to wait one year and three months before it could be unloaded and most of them had to wait for two months before they could be unloaded and when they were unloaded the Wolves were very unsafe they weren't secure wolves and of course uh most of the river workers who worked in the areas they called them heavy Horsemen light Horsemen wrapped scallions and Rogues a third of those people were criminals known criminals and of course the companies the merchant companies were losing a lot of cargo the West India dock for instance lost between 150 and 230 000 pounds worth of cargo in all all the companies lost about five hundred thousand pound of cargo with so many Goods going missing the West India Company decided to do something about it on July the 2nd 1798 the first River Police Force was set up there were 200 men taken from the watermen who were already working on the river and they used to go out in open boats and there was a surveyor or an inspector and up to three crew and they used to go out six hour intervals rowing up and down with the tide there was a place called execution dock now execution dot has been put in several areas on the River from the town of Ramsgate Pub where there is a gibbit hanging and all the way down you've got whopping old stairs and the villains were caught and they were hung in execution Dock and there they stayed until they were covered by three tides and if they survived they were they were innocent but normally then they were they were taken and put in a cage at cuckold point and Blackwell point and they were hung there as a warning to other people did it work uh no no it still went on [Music] while this new force was welcomed it was not until the creation of enclosed docks at the turn of the 19th century that the chaos and crime was solved all along this stretch of the river are historic landmarks some with surprisingly far-flung connections nestling alongside the tent is the Mayflower Pub in rotherhive named after the vessel which took the founding fathers to America the role of the Mayflower was actually a quirk of fate only the crew met here before joining the Speedwell and her religious passengers at Southampton the Speedwell later sprung a leak and was abandoned in Plymouth so the Mayflower sailed on a loan to make history in 1620. the captain Christopher Jones is buried in the local graveyard of Saint Mary's just down river from the Mayflower Pub is Deptford once one of the greatest shipbuilding areas in the country [Music] if Henry VII's new Navy was created with the likes of the giant Flagship Henri graciada known as great Harry the area became known as the Cradle of the Navy it's now over 60 years since any ship was built here and the once thriving roll docks have all but vanished however there are little reminders here and there Conjuring up memories of the past for instance was it near these steps by the old Master shipwrights building that Sir Walter Raleigh laid down his cloak to prevent Queen Elizabeth from getting her feet wet crossing a puddle the raw ducks in their prodigious shipbuilding attracted attention from all over the world the most extraordinary and colorful visitor to Deptford was Tsar Peter the Great he was the first Tsar to leave Russia and he was invited by William III to come and learn about shipbuilding staying at his friend's house John Evelyn the famous diarist the coat of arms of Deptford is a picture of Tsar Peter sitting on a stool with his ads and banging away a piece of wood he stayed in the grace and favor house that um John Evelyn had now John even had spent 45 years 45 years on setting out A Hundred Acre estate which is this is where we are and he laid out paths and Grove trees and ponds and and and streams and his pride and joy was um a 400 foot Holly hedge uh which was nine feet high and five feet wide everyone around here knows the story that um that the Russians had actually hadn't seen a wheelbarrow and they found these wheelbarrows and so he got some friends and they used to have races in being in rushing through these this hedge and one of the people that did it was Bill Haley Bill Haley was the second astronomer Royal and Bill Bill headed here's the astronomer Royal and czar of Russia having these races that ruined the garden of John even that who tended and nurtured at the 45 years [Music] while the Royal dockyards and shipbuilding Ventures were all on the South Bank the commercial docks developed on the North it's here that we find one of those peculiar place names which naturally conjures up extraordinary folk tales the Isle of dogs was originally a notorious Marsh reclaimed in medieval times and only became an island when the West India docks were built in 1802 one Theory as to the origins of its name is that it was a jokey reference to a former landowner in the 16th century who was called braish which is a kind of hunting dog foreign tale is based on a rather tragic event a young nobleman and his bride celebrated their wedding by going hunting in the hainalt forest [Music] his bride got lost and strayed into the marshy swamp near the river foreign she and her horse became trapped and were drowned her husband searched in vain for her and ventured too far into the bog where he also died their dogs left on the shoreline became increasingly uneasy and began howling for the Dead and it's said that the Isle is still haunted by ghostly Huntsman and a pack of phantom hounds [Music] however it's most commonly believed that the reason it's acquired its name is because the King used to kennel his hunting dogs here while he resided at Greenwich since the name of the Isle of dogs is first recorded in 1520 it would imply that Henry VIII who was particularly fond of Greenwich and was a Great Huntsman might have been that King whatever there is no doubt that the aisle offers one of the best views of Greenwich Palace it's 1873 this was the Royal Navy's Staff College until it closed in 1997. yet the spectacular Landmark was never designed for them it was originally conceived by Christopher Wren for Charles II but even he didn't use Greenwich as a royal palace the scientists had a royal presence on it since 1427. but it reached its Zenith as a palace under the Tudors Henry VII Mary the first and Elizabeth the first were all born here and it was a particular favorite of Elizabeth's but sadly it fell into disuse during the Commonwealth period under Oliver Cromwell after Charles II had failed to resurrect it as a palace William and Mary had the buildings adapted for use as a hospital for a tad Royal Navy seamen [Music] the chapel and painted Hall are amongst the finest Treasures in the capital the hall took 19 years to paint and the Art of Thornhill even included a portrait of himself holding out his hand in protest at the amount he was paid the man labored here on and off 18 or 19 years received the Knighthood and eventually public pressure was put on the authorities and he was given three pounds a square meter for the ceilings and a pound a square meter for the walls one of thornhill's great strengths was he used real people as his models and Thornhill chose as winter one of his Four Seasons the oldest pensioner here in the hospital at the time now the man I'm talking about is up there on the ceiling depicted as winter a man called John or Jonathan Varley he's a man who'd spent 60 years at sea and at the age of 96 is under stoppage of leave and punishment for lewd and disgusting Behavior that's not bad at that age William and Mary are painted in the center of the ceiling as handing Liberty to Europe and the Tyranny is represented by Louis XIV Louis coutures who has been trampled on or Sat On by Willian now this is a bit difficult for the French to accept that their great warrior king has been Sat On by a Dutchman masquerading as an English king further down you have architecture pointing to Ren's building and on the right of that you have old father time holding the naked figure of Truth up to the light and the light at the top of the painting is Apollo and his Chariot driving the sun through the sky shedding light on the enlightened king and queen and the whole edifice of Heaven is held in its place by the Royal Navy foreign Queen Anne's contribution to the hospital here incidentally was Captain Kidd's treasure Captain kid pirate was captured and hanged and his treasure was given to the crown and she in turn gave it to the Greenwich Hospital Foundation foreign in 1806 the hall was used for the lion State and one of Britain's greatest heroes Admiral the Lord Nelson killed in action during the Battle of Trafalgar Lord Nelson became the country's greatest Maritime hero at Greenwich a tableau to commemorate his death also records his greatest campaigns body was preserved in a barrel of Brandy before being brought back to London from here he was rode up River in the Royal barge before being buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral Nelson is by no means the only famous Seaman to be associated with Greenwich on the 7th of July 1967 Queen Elizabeth II knighted to Francis Chichester on the steps in front of the Watergate in recognition of his achievement of sailing single-handed around the world in the fastest time Greenwich there could be no final setting for the final chapter in the great adventure story of a man and his book not far from here 386 years ago the first Queen Elizabeth knighted Sir Francis Drake now it was the turn of Sir Francis Chichester with Sir Francis Drake Sword the queen was to dub the solo Voyager as night commander of the order of the British Empire foreign still survives as a tribute to Sir francis's achievement of covering 13 750 miles single-handedly in almost nine months it's actually tiny in here with as you can imagine very few Creature Comforts although I happen to notice that Sir Francis must have had a ponchon for beer for he took a four and a half gallon Cask with him unlike the Gypsy moth Sir Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hind has long since rotted away but Drake's achievement remains and is an example of the quite extraordinary daring of sailors during the Golden Age of Exploration of Queen Elizabeth's reign feat of Sir Francis Drake is all a more remarkable when you consider that he did it without an essential tool of the modern Navigator longitude the impact of a ship being able to accurately chart its position can never be underestimated in recognition of the Lincolnshire clock maker John Harrison who solved the problem of measuring longitude at Sea the meridian line was drawn through Greenwich and Greenwich Mean Time was created as a world standard The Observatory is built on the site of a Tudor Watchtower and summer house which Henry VIII used as a makeshift prison for one of his wives during the MayDay Tournament of 1536 Queen Anne Berlin is said to have dropped our handkerchief for her lover it was the sign which was to seal her fate the King was looking for any excuse to be rid of her since she had failed to Bear him a son the next day she was arrested for adultery and was taken by boat to the Tower of London [Music] the Tower of London has been a fortress and a palace for more than 900 years but is perhaps better known as a prison more often than not the prisoners will be brought by River from Westminster where they were tried and crowds would gather on the riverbank and wait to find out the verdict to see if they would be treated to the spectacle of a public execution the Executioner would stand behind the accused on the boat and if they were guilty they would point to the head of the ax towards their victim and if they were innocent they would point it away the crowds knew that if found guilty there would be a public execution 48 hours later depending upon The Condemned status they might have been imprisoned within the bloody Tower or the Queen's house only the most privileged were allowed to die in private within the walls the responsibility for looking after the prisoners was given to the Yeoman Waters there have been Yeoman Waters in the tower for over 900 years but there is always a problem working out the difference between the Yeoman Waters of the Tower of London and the Yeoman of the god most people seem to think we are the same group of men but of course we're not awesome [Music] the owners of God were formed in 1485 by King Henry VII he after the battle of Bosworth field got his own personal bodyguard together and they accompanied him as the nearest God in 1509 King Henry VII decided that he would leave 12 of his old sick and infirm Yeoman behind in the tower to protect it and the remainder of The Bodyguard he took away as his personal God we take our origin as a body of Jorma Waters from those twelve who were left inside the tower when they were State wrestling we were state dress they have a cross belt across the shoulder on which the original young of the Guard used to carry their aquabus which was the old type of gun they used to have in those days the main role of the young Awards originally was of course protecting the tower for the Monarch but then of course as the tower became used as a state prison the role of the waters changed and we became prison Waters looking after the hundreds of prisoners held within the Tower of London hey hey [Applause] the security of the Monarch has always been the tower's most important role and while today that function is symbolized by the accommodation of the crown jewels the layout of the tower reflects the changing styles of defensive architecture through the centuries the White Tower is on the site of the original Norman keep built by William the Conqueror the curtain wall towers and moat were added in the 13th century complete with unique double drawbridge entrance the moat was drained because the water was so polluted and stagnant that it became a severe health risk 1858 is still known as the year of the big stink in addition to being a palace and Fortress the tower has served as the first Royal Armory roll mint roll Observatory and even Royal Zoo while such roles have long since moved elsewhere there is one creature which has a very close link with the place the Ravens of course are a great Legend within the Tower and the story goes back to the reign of King Charles II just after the Great Fire of London all the Ravens that were in the city left the city and came into the tower and of course there were so many of them that the residents of atar and in particular the Royal observer in the northeast corner of the White Tower was being inundated with not only the droppings but the birds and the feathers and the chicks and so a petition was raised to Charles II to have the Ravens killed off firstly he agreed but then some bright spark came up with this old legend that said if the Ravens leave the tower then the White Tower will collapse and so will the monarchy of course Charles having just been reinstated on the throne after Cromwell thought better not push it too far so he ordered that six Ravens be kept in the tower and we still to this day have six Tower Ravens looked after by the raven master Beefeater is a nickname we've had the name for many hundreds of years and nobody honestly knows its Origins there are some people who think it derives from an old Norman word buffettiere but that has never been proven what we do know is that the Yeoman Waters of the Tower of London right up to the 1800s were paid part of their salary in beef hahaha [Applause] [Music] the Tower of London is equivalent to a citadel and could be considered to be the Crown's most important building in the country so the fact that it is next to the pool of London the heart of the city is most apt however in the greatest story of the Thames like its fellow Royal Palace at Greenwich the tower is really only a landmark on the river's Bank survivors of a constantly changing and evolving scene [Music] while the history of the River from the pool of London to Greenwich may be dominated by trade the docks and the Navy it's just a small part of the story of the city the Thames and the crown

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 102,865

Keywords: British heritage, British monarchy history, Buckingham Palace, Elizabethan era, England monarchies., House of Tudor, Palace of Westminster, Real Royalty, River Thames history, River Thames secrets, Tudor dynasty, Windsor legacy, crown jewels, hidden history, historic palaces, historical monuments, historical properties, noble history, royal empire legacy, royal lineage, royal tours

Id: AOa8F1fYIoo

Length: 49min 33sec (2973 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2023