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The Tower Liberty

from

John Stow (John Strype, editor),
Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster
London, 1720, 2 volumes

Please click within the map for detailed images.

 

What was the Tower Liberty?

The Tower Liberty, or Liberties, or Liberty of the Tower:

Until the nineteenth century the Tower of London and a small area surrounding it was free from the jurisdiction of the City of London. The Tower Liberty had its own courthouse and prison, and the Gentlemen (or Officers) of the Tower claimed certain rights, such as the beasts that fell off London Bridge, all swans which floated below the bridge, as well the right to exact some tolls on goods travelling on the Thames past the Tower.

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century one of the German ancestors of the owner of this site lived within the Tower as a Gentleman of the Tower.

Some views of the Tower.

 

Some engravings of the Tower during the very early nineteenth century.

Traitor's Gate at the Tower.

One of the Tower's characters during the Georgian period.

One of the animals kept in the Tower during the eighteenth century (A tradition dating back to Norman times): Marco the Lion


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