Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-03-25
a FAMOUS STRUCTURE.
History Of Nation in Building
ing the Tower of London

History Of Nation in Building -RestoT-
ing the Tower of London
It may safely be said that no city in the
world possesses monument equal IN his
toric interest to the Tower of London. For
500 years, as palace, fortress and prison, it
has been continuously inhabited. Recent
discoveries have Justified the ancient tradi-
ton that on the same site there stood an
important Roman fertilization, and the
facts stand proved that important Roman
works occupied the spot for thousand
years or more before Gundulf, the weeping
monk of Bee, in Normandy, whom the
Conqueror Summoned to act as his builder,
laid one stone of the great White Tower on
another. Gundulf was said to have tenn
pered his cement with the blood of beasts,
and to have watered with his tears the the
alter of so many future tragedies. Probably
he pounded up the cid red tiles and bricks
of the Romans, and so gave to ms mortar
the red color which the common folk re.
gar9ed with SO much awe.
Successive kings, notably William Rufus
who "pilled and shaved the people with
tribute especially to spend about the
Tower of London aud the Great Hall az
Westminster, and Henry III. the first
deviser of Thames Reimbursement, added
to the Tower of London-not without
many murmurings on the part of their sub
iects. who saw In the tower standing
menace to their liberties.
In the sixteenth century the Tower of
London, with its outer and inner ballium,
the great keep of the White Tower, and
the grim portal of the Traitors Gate, must
have been looked upon from the river as
most imposing monument Of the feudal
system. Unhappily, under the Stuarts
and their successors, the glories OF the
Tower were suffered to decay. On the
south side the inner wall with the Lantern
Tower became ruins, and during the latter
part of the last century their place was
filed by huge and hideous brick build
ing, with all the unwieldly ugliness of a
Thames street warehouse, by which the
view of the Tower from the river was
effectually blotted out.
Daring the last twenty-five years better
Judgment and better taste have been shown
IN the treatment Of this great standing rec.
ord of the history of England. The Prince
Consort was one of the first to take an
active interest in the antiquities and beau
ties Of the place. Mr.. Salvin, who died
last year, and who only short time before
his death visited the Tower in order to see
the work that had been done and the dis
coveries that had been made at the Cradle
Tower, was called in as consulting archi-
tect. Under his advice the Chapel Of st.
John In the White Tower was restored and
is now perhaps the finest specimen of Nor
man architecture in the kingdom, and the
ruinous tumble-down Warders' quarters
were replaced by appropriate buildings in
the style of the Tudors. For some time,
owing to the pressure of work in other
directions, little was done beyond mere
maintenance and repair. Six years ago,
lively begun again. The Chapel of st.
Peter ad Vincula, the rialplace of Queen
Anne Boleyp, with the other illustFious
victims of royal displeasure or politi
cal necessity down to the time OF
the Jacobite Lords of the 45, had
fallen into a most discreditable state
Of decay The interior was choked by
the ugliest of modern galleries, with tall
unsightly pews a sinking of the pave
ment of the altar was becoming more and
more apparent, and it became necessary to
take immediate steps to prevent the whole
building from falling into ruins. When
this chapel had been repaired and purged
of the monstrosities by which it was de-
filed, the next work of Importance to be
undertaken was the restoration of the
south or river side, together with the Well
and the Cradle towers. This has now been
done, and in the meantime certain mean
buildings on the east side of the White
Tower, which were used by the Royal En-.
gineers as stores, showed such unmistaks-
BILE signs of an immediate intention of falling
in bodily that they had to be swept away.
On that side, therefore, the White Tower
is unmarked and clear as it was erected
by Gundulf. 1t was in course Of this re-
moval that the Roman remains, to which
allusion has been made in the early part of
this paper, were discovered. At the same
time the dirty slums known as the Irish
Barracks were cleared away, and the space
between the inner and outer Notifications
on the eastern side being thrown open,
the Salt and Broad Arrow towers stand
fully revealed.
The great work of all, however, re-
mains The Tower of London is still
screened from the Thames by the great
warehouse of which mention has been
made Fortunately there is q prospect
that remedy will be found for the eclipse.
An arrangement has at last been come to
between the Secretary of State for War
and the First Commissioner of Works, by
which the former will give up the ware.
house. which is no longer required by the
War Department, and the upper stories OF
which are SO rotten and of such fimsy
construction that no bulky goods can be
stored there The First Commissioner of
Works, on his part, will remove these |
buildings, and then proposes to complete
the restoration of the inner walls OF the
Tower and the Lantern Tower, of which,
no doubt, the foundations will be found
beneath the warehouse. The whole circle
of the Tower of London will thus again
reappear, and the Central Tower will stand
out, unincumbered by other buildings, in
all its pristine grandeur. Ample authori-
ties exist for the restoration, and though
stones, it is easy to reconstruct an exact
and authentic presentment of the old
fortress as it stood in those
days. Careful drawings have been pre-
pared at the Office of Works, together
with models of the Tower as it is and as it
will be when the work is accomplished, and
these have received the approval of some
OF the chief authorities on the archaeology
and architecture. Nor need the public fear
lest they should be "pilled and shaved
for the purpose, as their forbears were by
William Rufus, for the total cost of the
work is only estimated at about f6, 500, OF
which some f2,000 or more will be re.
couped to the Exchequer by the sale Of the
old materials of the storehouse. London
Times.