Jewel Tower and Westminster Abbey
The Jewel Tower is the stand-alone stone building in the right-foreground. It was built between 1365 and 1366 at the extreme southern end of the Palace of Westminster, which was nominally the chief residence of mediaeval English kings from the 11th to the 16th century. This area was known as the Privy Palace, a residential complex of hall, chambers and chapels for the royal family, removed from the more public law courts and Exchequer in and around Westminster Hall.
The Jewel Tower stood at the western end of a royal garden, defended by a moat to the south and west, on land which had been appropriated from the adjacent Westminster Abbey. Building works, directed by the master mason Henry Yevele and the master carpenter Hugh Herland, were largely completed within a year. The 15th-century ‘Black Book’ of Westminster Abbey recorded the monks' anger at the seizure of their land for the construction of the tower and a sense of delight over the apparent divine retribution that struck the perpetrator, William Usshborne, keeper of the palace.
The original intended use of the building, then known as ‘Jewel House’, was the keeping of precious goods, particularly silver plate. The first keeper, William Sleaford, probably used the ground floor as an administrative office (and possibly accommodation for his assistants) and the two upper floors as storage; the second floor, which had double doors, may have housed the most valuable goods. Documents of the late 14th and early 15th centuries describe the occasional dispatch of items for use in other royal manors and castles.
The tower is now in the hands of English Heritage and is a run as a museum explaining its history, structure and significance.
Jewel Tower and Westminster Abbey
The Jewel Tower is the stand-alone stone building in the right-foreground. It was built between 1365 and 1366 at the extreme southern end of the Palace of Westminster, which was nominally the chief residence of mediaeval English kings from the 11th to the 16th century. This area was known as the Privy Palace, a residential complex of hall, chambers and chapels for the royal family, removed from the more public law courts and Exchequer in and around Westminster Hall.
The Jewel Tower stood at the western end of a royal garden, defended by a moat to the south and west, on land which had been appropriated from the adjacent Westminster Abbey. Building works, directed by the master mason Henry Yevele and the master carpenter Hugh Herland, were largely completed within a year. The 15th-century ‘Black Book’ of Westminster Abbey recorded the monks' anger at the seizure of their land for the construction of the tower and a sense of delight over the apparent divine retribution that struck the perpetrator, William Usshborne, keeper of the palace.
The original intended use of the building, then known as ‘Jewel House’, was the keeping of precious goods, particularly silver plate. The first keeper, William Sleaford, probably used the ground floor as an administrative office (and possibly accommodation for his assistants) and the two upper floors as storage; the second floor, which had double doors, may have housed the most valuable goods. Documents of the late 14th and early 15th centuries describe the occasional dispatch of items for use in other royal manors and castles.
The tower is now in the hands of English Heritage and is a run as a museum explaining its history, structure and significance.