The results were perhaps the most dramatic of all the pandemic-restricted sites I've visited in the past 18 months, precisely because the Tower is always so uncomfortably crowded. Now, the amusement park-style queuing system outside the Crown Jewels stands empty. Haven't had your fill and want to go again? Beefeaters smile indulgently and let you circle around inside the exhibition rather than enforcing strict traffic control. Tower Green has become a place of quiet, restful contemplation where you can catch the off-duty residents playing with their children and dogs. Footsteps echo in the silence of the restored Medieval palace. The chapel in the White Tower ... one of only two Norman religious spaces left in London ... is once again a place for quiet contemplation.
Even the ravens seem more approachable.
As with Westminster Abbey, tours have been suspended because there's no way to deliver them without packing people together. So you have to do without one of the best bit of a visit to the Tower: the wit, authority and tale-spinning of the military men and women (technically Yeoman Warders, aka Beefeaters) who live here. Though they are on duty and happy to answer questions and have a chat. Few people could need a guided tour less than us, of course. Two history buffs, one strong on the monarchy and architecture and the other with deep expertise in arms, armour and military history, with a combined total of more than a dozen visits between us including small, behind-the-scene events through our respective work places. We know the place.
Still, it's good to be back for a proper ramble. When you're here for The Ceremony of the Keys or corporate events your access is limited and your attention more on people than artefacts.
The crown jewels are the highlight of the place for most people and there's no denying they're magnificent, though the crowd management tactic of displaying them between moving walkways can be phenomenally irritating if you're trying to study details. Don't miss the before and after. George IV's coronation robes and the royal "plate" (a collection of outrageously opulent decorative bits for banquets, including a silver-gilt wine cooler most people could bathe in) are just as interesting, if not so jewel-encrusted.
Our combined interests, however, found us even happier in the White Tower. I'd been under the mistaken impression that the best of what used to be in London had been moved north to the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds. I was, happily, misinformed. There's enough armour, jousting kit, swords, cannon, etc. to keep the interested busy for hours. Bored by the trappings of warfare? No problem. Much of this stuff is decorative enough to appeal on a purely artistic basis, and the displays are engaging.
There are even some modern updates, including a magnificent dragon assembled from a variety of arms and armour and a case of modern, highly decorative firearms that proves the point that money and good taste often occupy different planets.
With the queuing necessitated by the usual crowds, it would be tough to see everything in one visit. Not so at the moment. After the jewels and the armour, my favourite bit of the Tower is the reconstructed medieval palace. I remember this causing huge controversy when they created it in the late '90s; while the French are happy to re-create interiors to delight tourists (witness most of the chateaux in the Loire), the British tend to renovate and preserve whatever is there. I'm delighted that people went against the trend here, giving us a king's bedchamber and a throne room packed with colour and life. I wish there was more.
Walter Raleigh's tower has some excellent audio-visual interpretation to help you understand his time here, while the wall walks around the northern edge of the complex have interesting mini-museums dedicated to the Tower's role in the World Wars, and its history as a zoo. The latter is also evoked through the whole complex with chicken wire sculptures of wild animals who once lived here. It's a fun touch.
We skipped the Fusiliers Museum, the Torture Museum and the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, the latter because we've been lucky enough to spend time there in recent years at carol services and the others because after our extensive lingering in the White Tower we'd reached an elegant sufficiency of history.
One thing about our visit saddened me profoundly. And made me feel very old. Today, from wherever you stand in the Tower complex, the London skyline bristles above you, with the Shard only slightly more intrusive than the cluster of office blocks from the adjoining City. When I first visited in my teens and twenties, none of that existed. The only building I remember being able to see from inside the walls was Tower Bridge, and the Victorians built that as an architectural match. It was easy, therefore, to lose yourself entirely in the history and imagine you were travelling back to Tudor or medieval times. You need a much better imagination to do that now. But if you're ever lucky enough to be here with limited crowds, just keep your eyes low, find a quiet corner and indulge in a bit of dreaming.
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