Comments on: Ancient Graffiti At The Tower Of London

By: Frank Dickinson

Frank Dickinson — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 08:38:40 +0000

On my travels with the Ancient Monuments branch, I visited Carlisle Castle and was shown some really good prisoners carvings in the cells, nearly all done by French POWs from the Napoleonic wars

By: Peter Holford

Peter Holford — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 19:56:54 +0000

Superior graffiti indeed. There is often bits and pieces in old buildings but I guess the Tower of London had more than its fair share of educated men (and occasionally women) who had plenty of time on their hands. The only place with comparable quality I have seen was in the Lantern Tower in La Rochelle which held English prisoners.
http://www.trover.com/li/vv3n/Jaix

By: Frank Dickinson

Frank Dickinson — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 16:52:07 +0000

During the sixties and seventies I was a contracted draughtsman to the then Ancient Monuments branch of the Ministry of Works and worked for two years at the Tower of London, mainly on 2 projects, one on measuring and drawing to scale all the cannon in the
Tower and round the country belonging to the Royal Ordnance, a book was published in 76. The second project and more interesting was taking negative stone rubbings of all the prisoners inscriptions in all the towers and collating all these on plans of each Tower. This took some time and of course I became quite friendly with the yeoman warders, one who gave me a copy of a hand written manuscript regarding all the prisoners of the ToL
I still have this copy today and some extra copies of various rubbings that I made and it got me very interested in the history of these prisoners, so I did a lot of research in tower archives and through various historians and managed to find out more than had been published.
I did think of using the old manuscript and my information and maybe publish a book ,however the contract eventually ended, the rubbings and plans were put aside and nothing more was done by the Ancient Monuments branch as far as I can tell, tho a few years back a book on the prisoners was published by a yeoman warder but I doubt it was the man Iknew

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 08:09:23 +0000

Of all graffiti, that in the Tower seems to speak most loudly down the ages. Perhaps it is because so much is known of the lives -and deaths- of those involuntary scribes who languished at the very centre of our national story.
It amazes me the elaborate scale of some, like the Arundel family crest I almost visualise the brothers standing posed around a chimney breast,moire ting their footman to chisel deeper the gillyflower ! Others it is easy to see a man in his final days on earth, scraping listlessly with the handle of his one spoon, to leave some sign of his passing, for those awaiting similar fate in future.
Amazing too, that Tower guardians allowed such marks to remain and in effect grant some life after death to those whom the Monarch disliked so much.
I like to think these poor unfortunates would draw comfort in knowing that 500 years later, so many people draw such interest from their final works.

By: Jan Turner

Jan Turner — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 07:30:58 +0000

Fascinating. I am intrigued by the variety and quality of the letterforms and wonder what tools were available to them. As prisoners, it is surprising that they were allowed access to sharp implements.

By: linda salter

linda salter — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 07:10:50 +0000

Thank you. Fascinating. You have significantly altered my morning routine today!

By: Valerie-Jael

Valerie-Jael — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 04:57:32 +0000

Fantastic photos, thanks for sharing. As I was born near the tower, I spent many childhood days skulking around there, and was always fascinated by the graffiti there. Valerie

By: Joanne C

Joanne C — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 03:13:46 +0000

So much information ! Extraordinary !

By: Janet M

Janet M — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 00:12:20 +0000

Poignant and lovely.