Location/size of a cell in the Tower?

Could someone possibly venture the size and location of the typical cell (if there is such a thing) for the average political prisoner (say a knight, not nobility) in the Tower during Richard's reign?

I've looked online, but can't find. And the Tower is 6,000 miles away, so I can't tour it. Unfortunately.

~Wednesday

P.S. I think it outrageous that I can discern the names of the ravens, but not the size of a cell. What is the Web coming to?

Hi
What do you mean by location? The Tower was a developing building that was added to over periods of time which meant that each building had unique features. For example, the lower chamber of the Bloody Tower, originally called the Garden Tower, is quite a spacious room; Sir Walter Raleigh was incarcerated there from 1603 to 1617 and his family visited regularly and he received visitors and conducted scientific experiments in the nearby gardens. The Martin Tower, home to the Wizard Earl, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, now houses an exhibition on Crown Jewels. Important prisoners such as Ann Boleyn were housed in the same apartments they had used when visiting before, in Ann's case, the rooms used before her coronation. She actually asked where she was to go when escorted to the Tower after her arrest as she thought she would be taken to a dungeon and was told she was to be housed in the same apartments she had used before.
Here are some sites with some more information
http://www.castles.me.uk/the-tower-of-london.htm

http://www.castlexplorer.co.uk/england/toweroflondon/toweroflondon_hist.php#main

Elaine


--- In , "wednesday_mc" <wednesday.mac@...> wrote:
>
> Could someone possibly venture the size and location of the typical cell (if there is such a thing) for the average political prisoner (say a knight, not nobility) in the Tower during Richard's reign?
>
> I've looked online, but can't find. And the Tower is 6,000 miles away, so I can't tour it. Unfortunately.
>
> ~Wednesday
>
> P.S. I think it outrageous that I can discern the names of the ravens, but not the size of a cell. What is the Web coming to?
>

It's Anne with an 'e'...

On 13 November 2012 19:16, ellrosa1452 <kathryn198@...> wrote:

> **
>
>
> Hi
> What do you mean by location? The Tower was a developing building that was
> added to over periods of time which meant that each building had unique
> features. For example, the lower chamber of the Bloody Tower, originally
> called the Garden Tower, is quite a spacious room; Sir Walter Raleigh was
> incarcerated there from 1603 to 1617 and his family visited regularly and
> he received visitors and conducted scientific experiments in the nearby
> gardens. The Martin Tower, home to the Wizard Earl, the ninth Earl of
> Northumberland, now houses an exhibition on Crown Jewels. Important
> prisoners such as Ann Boleyn were housed in the same apartments they had
> used when visiting before, in Ann's case, the rooms used before her
> coronation. She actually asked where she was to go when escorted to the
> Tower after her arrest as she thought she would be taken to a dungeon and
> was told she was to be housed in the same apartments she had used before.
> Here are some sites with some more information
> http://www.castles.me.uk/the-tower-of-london.htm
>
>
> http://www.castlexplorer.co.uk/england/toweroflondon/toweroflondon_hist.php#main
>
> Elaine
>
> --- In , "wednesday_mc"
> <wednesday.mac@...> wrote:
> >
> > Could someone possibly venture the size and location of the typical cell
> (if there is such a thing) for the average political prisoner (say a
> knight, not nobility) in the Tower during Richard's reign?
> >
> > I've looked online, but can't find. And the Tower is 6,000 miles away,
> so I can't tour it. Unfortunately.
> >
> > ~Wednesday
> >
> > P.S. I think it outrageous that I can discern the names of the ravens,
> but not the size of a cell. What is the Web coming to?
> >
>
>
>



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--- In , "wednesday_mc" <wednesday.mac@...> wrote:
>
> Could someone possibly venture the size and location of the typical cell (if there is such a thing) for the average political prisoner (say a knight, not nobility) in the Tower during Richard's reign?
>
> I've looked online, but can't find. And the Tower is 6,000 miles away, so I can't tour it. Unfortunately.


I don't know if there was a "typical" cell in the Tower, but search through YouTube. There are tons of little movies of places in the Tower there. I wanted to see the chamber in the tower that houses the mechanism for the portcullis of the Water Gate...I read "somewhere" that's the last place the boys were reportedly seen. I was amazed at how many little travelogues there were.

Katy

Thanks so much for the links.

By "location," I mean in which building would a lowly prisoner have been kept in Richard's time? I doubt a knight or commoner would have spacious rooms, so where would they have been housed?

Maybe it would have been the same building Perkin Warbeck was in? He can't have been treated nicely?

And I'm still looking for actual cell dimensions. Raleigh seems to have had more of a medieval flat than than a cell.

~Wednesday


--- In , "ellrosa1452" <kathryn198@...> wrote:
>
> Hi
> What do you mean by location? The Tower was a developing building that was added to over periods of time which meant that each building had unique features. For example, the lower chamber of the Bloody Tower, originally called the Garden Tower, is quite a spacious room; Sir Walter Raleigh was incarcerated there from 1603 to 1617 and his family visited regularly and he received visitors and conducted scientific experiments in the nearby gardens. The Martin Tower, home to the Wizard Earl, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, now houses an exhibition on Crown Jewels. Important prisoners such as Ann Boleyn were housed in the same apartments they had used when visiting before, in Ann's case, the rooms used before her coronation. She actually asked where she was to go when escorted to the Tower after her arrest as she thought she would be taken to a dungeon and was told she was to be housed in the same apartments she had used before.
> Here are some sites with some more information
> http://www.castles.me.uk/the-tower-of-london.htm
>
> http://www.castlexplorer.co.uk/england/toweroflondon/toweroflondon_hist.php#main
>
> Elaine
>
>
> --- In , "wednesday_mc" <wednesday.mac@> wrote:
> >
> > Could someone possibly venture the size and location of the typical cell (if there is such a thing) for the average political prisoner (say a knight, not nobility) in the Tower during Richard's reign?
> >
> > I've looked online, but can't find. And the Tower is 6,000 miles away, so I can't tour it. Unfortunately.
> >
> > ~Wednesday
> >
> > P.S. I think it outrageous that I can discern the names of the ravens, but not the size of a cell. What is the Web coming to?
> >
>

You must first of all remember that the Tower was primarily still a royal palace. It wasn't until the Tudor period that it gained it's terrible reputation for torture and death.
The majority of prisoners were kept in fairly basic rooms, unless they were nobility or rich, in which case they had the kind of accommodation the likes of Anne Boleyn and Walter Raleigh were later to inhabit before they got the chop! That is a nicely appointed chamber, with a fire, table, chairs, bed, and a view of the green. No prisoner had a river view, for obvious reasons, though the royal apartments did.
Also the Tower inside the walls was a thriving mini city, full of people during the day, and lots of comings and goings.
I've been to the Tower so many times I have lost count, and I cannot honestly recall any particularly nasty little cells or oubliettes like there are in so many other castles, and just over the river in the Clink prison, which even today is a ghastly place.
Paul



On 13 Nov 2012, at 18:45, wednesday_mc wrote:

> Could someone possibly venture the size and location of the typical cell (if there is such a thing) for the average political prisoner (say a knight, not nobility) in the Tower during Richard's reign?
>
> I've looked online, but can't find. And the Tower is 6,000 miles away, so I can't tour it. Unfortunately.
>
> ~Wednesday
>
> P.S. I think it outrageous that I can discern the names of the ravens, but not the size of a cell. What is the Web coming to?
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Richard Liveth Yet!

I don't know about the TofL....but at Warwick Castle there is one very large dungeon where, I guess, the 'lowly' prisoners would have been held. It is absolutely vile and in complete darkness. There is also an area to one side where there is an oubliette...where it is said a prisoner would just be thrown and left....no food...nothing...Eileen

--- In , "wednesday_mc" <wednesday.mac@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks so much for the links.
>
> By "location," I mean in which building would a lowly prisoner have been kept in Richard's time? I doubt a knight or commoner would have spacious rooms, so where would they have been housed?
>
> Maybe it would have been the same building Perkin Warbeck was in? He can't have been treated nicely?
>
> And I'm still looking for actual cell dimensions. Raleigh seems to have had more of a medieval flat than than a cell.
>
> ~Wednesday
>
>
> --- In , "ellrosa1452" <kathryn198@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi
> > What do you mean by location? The Tower was a developing building that was added to over periods of time which meant that each building had unique features. For example, the lower chamber of the Bloody Tower, originally called the Garden Tower, is quite a spacious room; Sir Walter Raleigh was incarcerated there from 1603 to 1617 and his family visited regularly and he received visitors and conducted scientific experiments in the nearby gardens. The Martin Tower, home to the Wizard Earl, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, now houses an exhibition on Crown Jewels. Important prisoners such as Ann Boleyn were housed in the same apartments they had used when visiting before, in Ann's case, the rooms used before her coronation. She actually asked where she was to go when escorted to the Tower after her arrest as she thought she would be taken to a dungeon and was told she was to be housed in the same apartments she had used before.
> > Here are some sites with some more information
> > http://www.castles.me.uk/the-tower-of-london.htm
> >
> > http://www.castlexplorer.co.uk/england/toweroflondon/toweroflondon_hist.php#main
> >
> > Elaine
> >
> >
> > --- In , "wednesday_mc" <wednesday.mac@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Could someone possibly venture the size and location of the typical cell (if there is such a thing) for the average political prisoner (say a knight, not nobility) in the Tower during Richard's reign?
> > >
> > > I've looked online, but can't find. And the Tower is 6,000 miles away, so I can't tour it. Unfortunately.
> > >
> > > ~Wednesday
> > >
> > > P.S. I think it outrageous that I can discern the names of the ravens, but not the size of a cell. What is the Web coming to?
> > >
> >
>