page_title: Jewel Tower
section_title: 17th–18th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Jewel Tower / History / 17th–18th centuries
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of 1621 door in the Jewel Tower
context_page_description: The Jewel Tower is a 14th-century surviving element of the Palace of Westminster, in London, England. It was built between 1365 and 1366, under the direction of William of Sleaford and Henry de Yevele, to house the personal treasure of King Edward III. The original Tower was a three-storey, crenellated stone building which occupied a secluded part of the Palace and was protected by a moat linked to the River Thames. The ground floor featured elaborate sculpted vaulting, described by historian Jeremy Ashbee as "an architectural masterpiece". The Tower continued to be used for storing the monarch's treasure and personal possessions until 1512, when a fire in the Palace caused King Henry VIII to relocate his court to the nearby Palace of Whitehall.
  At the end of the 16th century the House of Lords began to use the Tower to store its parliamentary records, building a house alongside it for the use of the parliamentary clerk, and extensive improvements followed in 1621. The Tower continued as the Lords' records office through the 18th century and several renovations were carried out to improve its fire-proofing and comfort, creating the present appearance of the Tower.
context_section_description: In 1621, a subcommittee of the House of Lords concluded that the Lords' record keeping should be improved, and the tower was renovated to improve its storage facilities. The first floor of the tower, used to store the documents, was renovated with brick vaulting, providing better fire protection than the original wooden ceiling, by Thomas Hicks at a cost of £6. The chamber was further protected by a new iron door.
  The parliamentary clerk continued to live alongside the tower, except during the interregnum of 1649 and 1660, when the House of Lords was temporarily abolished. The sewer feeding into the moat was blocked up around the middle of the century, and the moat, which previously seems to have been kept clean, was allowed to gradually fill up with debris, despite complaints from the House of Lords that this put the Jewel Tower at greater risk of fire and thieves.
  By 1716, the tower was reported to Parliament as being in a "ruinous condition", and an enquiry concluded that repairs and restoration should go ahead at a cost of £870. The work commenced under Nicholas Hawksmoor, the Surveyor General, but staff turnover in the Office of Works and accusations of corruption slowed the work. Cut-backs were made, in particular to the plans to strengthen the roof of the tower with fire-resilient brick vaults; despite this, the costs totalled £1,118 by the end of the project in 1719. The outside of the tower was reworked to form its modern appearance, with plainer, larger windows and a simpler parapet, and a new chimney to keep members of the House of Lords warm while they were reading the records. Specialised wooden cupboards and shelves were installed on the first floor to hold the documents. Further work was carried out in 1726 to improve the security and safety of the tower, particularly from the threat of fire, at a cost of £508.
  At some point in the 18th century, possibly in 1753, the upper and lower halves of the tower were divided into two separate areas. The spiral staircase from the ground floor kitchen to the upper floors, holding the records, was removed, and a window on the first floor was turned into a doorway so that the upper floors could be accessed from the neighbouring house. A fire-resistant stone vaulted ceiling was installed in on the first floor, possibly also in 1753 at a cost of £350.
  An investigation by the Board of Works in 1751 concluded that the parliamentary clerk's house was in a poor condition and unsuitable for habitation. In particular, it lacked a kitchen and scullery, and the cooking was still being carried out in the ground floor rooms of the Jewel Tower. Two three-storey brick houses – later titled 6–7 Old Palace Yard – were built in its place between 1754 and 1755, possibly by the architect Kenton Couse, at a cost of £2,432. The Jewel Tower was accessed from the Old Palace Yard through a central passageway that ran between the houses, and a range of subsidiary buildings were built behind the houses, joining them and the tower, while the tower continued to be used for preparing food.
caption: Detail of the metal door on the first floor of the tower, installed in 1621
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