Top 10 Things to See at the Tower of London: A Complete Visitor Guide

No visit to the Tower of London is complete without seeing the Crown Jewels, and nothing quite prepares you for the reality of them. The collection contains over 23,000 gemstones set across crowns, sceptres, orbs, and ceremonial objects that are still used in active royal ceremonies today. These are not museum pieces, they are working symbols of the British monarchy, brought out for coronations and state occasions and then returned to the Jewel House under the Tower’s protection.

The centrepiece for most visitors is the Imperial State Crown, worn by the monarch at the State Opening of Parliament, and St Edward’s Crown, used in the coronation itself. The Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross contains the Cullinan I diamond, the largest clear-cut diamond in the world. Visitors move past the collection on a slow conveyor platform, which keeps the queues flowing but means you can’t linger. Arriving early, or with reserved entry, gives you the best experience before the lines build.

The White Tower is the original Tower of London. Built by William the Conqueror in the years following the Norman conquest of 1066, it was designed to be seen from miles away — a deliberate statement of power to a city that had just been conquered. Nearly a thousand years later, it still dominates the fortress.

Inside, the Tower houses one of the finest collections of royal armour in the world, including a suit made for Henry VIII that charts, with some diplomacy, the king’s changing physique across his reign. The Chapel of St John the Evangelist on the upper floors is one of the most complete examples of Norman ecclesiastical architecture surviving in England. It’s quieter than most of the Tower and worth the climb.

The Yeoman Warders — universally known as Beefeaters — are what most visitors remember most vividly about the Tower of London. To qualify, each must have completed a minimum of 22 years of military service and hold the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. There are around 37 of them at any one time, and they live with their families inside the Tower walls.

Their free tours, which run throughout the day and are included with standard admission, are theatrical, funny, and historically rich. The Beefeaters are not performing a script — they are recounting the stories of a place they genuinely call home. Standing in the shadow of the Bloody Tower while a Yeoman Warder describes what happened there is one of those experiences that no amount of reading in advance quite replicates. For a full portrait of who the Beefeaters are and how they came to guard the Tower, read our dedicated guide to the Yeoman Warders.

Before the roads that now surround the Tower existed, the Thames was the primary route in and out of London — and for prisoners of the Crown, arrival by water through Traitors’ Gate was the moment at which hope usually expired. The gate was used to receive prisoners accused of treason, including Anne Boleyn and the future Elizabeth I, who passed through it in 1554 as a prisoner of her own sister, Queen Mary.

Standing beside it today, looking back out through the arch towards the river, gives you a sense of the Tower’s relationship with the Thames that the interior alone doesn’t quite convey.

The Bloody Tower takes its name from the most enduring mystery in the Tower’s history — the fate of the Princes in the Tower. Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, were held here in 1483, reportedly on the orders of their uncle Richard III. They were never seen in public again. What happened to them has been debated by historians for five centuries and remains unresolved.

The tower also housed Sir Walter Raleigh during his lengthy imprisonment, during which he wrote his History of the World. His apartments have been recreated inside and offer a surprisingly human window into what long-term confinement within the Tower actually looked like.

The Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula — St Peter in Chains — sits quietly at the north end of Tower Green and is easy to walk past without realising what it contains. Beneath its floor lie the remains of two queens of England (Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard), three Catholic martyrs, and dozens of others executed on Tower Hill and within the fortress itself. Thomas More is buried here. So is Lady Jane Grey.

The Victorian historian Lord Macaulay described it as the saddest spot in England. It remains one of the most historically significant small chapels in the country, and access is included with Tower admission.