Traitors' Gate

And on the way home, we took A boat down the Thames, as we went back to the suburb in which he lived, we passed the Tower of London.

The boat paused briefly at Traitor's Gate.

I looked up at those impressive old buildings and that opening into them with its portcullis, where centuries ago many people had arrived knowing that they probably would not pass out of that gate again and that before them lay torture and probably death.

And I remember being somewhat overwhelmed by the sense of age and the importance and the gravity of all of that.

Well, on Tower Hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar, or kedger, as the sailors say, holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg.

So, well, quite interestingly, in a sort of psychogeography sense, a couple of chapters ago, he talks about the Traitor's Gate.

He describes one depiction of a whale... of a bad picture of a whale.

I think it was where he says, oh, it looks like the entrance to Traitor's Gate at the Tower of London.

So this is, you know, in a psychogeography sense, this is, you know, a couple of hundred yards away from that.

Where, you know, there is this beggar who has lost his leg to a whale and he has a painting of of his leg being lost to sort of show to people, look, I lost my leg.

Throughout the 12th century, each new monarch enlarged the fortress to meet evolving military threats.

Edward I, in the 1280s, built the outer bailey with a new gate called Traitor's Gate.

These additions turned the Tower into a multi-layered stronghold that could house both troops and royal family members.

While still a formidable military citadel, by the reign of Henry III, it also became an opulent residence for the king's court.

The pretty things of Knightsbridge lying for a minister of state.

Is a far cry from the nodding plain near at Traitor's Gate.

'Cause the high heel he used to be has been ground down and he listens for the footsteps that would follow him around.

To murder my love is a crime, but will you still love a man out of time? [upbeat music] He was a top and a hip and a millionaire.

Um, and you will then finish with a fully guided experience in the Tower of London with, again, with a Blue badge guide.

So you'll get to see the Crown Jewels, Traitors Gate, you'll hear all the stories of execution, how the palace used...

The tower used to be a zoo as well, which people don't realize.

Um, it's a fabulous tour.

She was only twenty years old, and she genuinely believed she may die there.

Imagine walking through Traitor's Gate knowing your own mother never walked back out.

That takes more than courage.

I think that's almost impossible to imagine for any of us now.