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| feeding pigeons by the roman wall |
We went to the Tower of London on the weekend. Here is a photo of me feeding the pigeons while we were waiting for the tour to start. The wall you can see behind me was made by the Romans. My mom says I have to report 5 things about the trip to the Tower of London, so here they are:
1. They used to have a really deep moat around the tower to protect the castle, but then it was really full of poop and stuff. They tried to make a sluice gate so all that stuff would go out into the river, but it didn't work and all the poop just stayed. So... it turned out that the moat WAS a really big defence because it stunk so much that no one wanted to conquor it. Even the people inside the tower left because they couldn't stand the smell. It was too stinky for the king to want to live there, so he finally had the moat filled in with dirt. No more moat!
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| outside the walls of the Tower of London |
2. They killed A LOT of people there. No one really wanted to be the executioner, so they would tell prisoners that they could go free if they would be the executioner. Sometimes the executioners were even young kids like me. The tour guide made me come to the front when she told everyone about some guy (my mom says Thomas Cromwell) getting killed by a kid my age. It was a bit annoying to have to be at the front. Still, if i had to choose to be killed or be an executioner, i think i would be the executioner.
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| why does a polar bear statue need a chained ankle? |
3. They also used to have animals and stuff there living in the Tower. Bears, and tigers and ostriches and stuff. People would bring wild animals as a gift for the king, and he would just let them hang around in the tower. Once a lady got her arm ripped off trying to pat a lion. Not so smart. The animals aren't there any more, but they have some really cool statues of animals all over the place inside the Tower (they are made of wire mesh!).
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| lion sculptures in the moat |
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| monkey teeth and monkey butt |
4. They have these big birds there. My mom says they are ravens. A legend says if the birds ever leave the tower, the tower will crumble and be destroyed. You can see the birds jumping around on the lawn. They clip their wings so they can't fly away. They also feed them lots of meat and bread soaked with blood and eggs. Not my idea of a good meal, but they seem to like it.
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| A Raven sitting on a stump |
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| The Raven Cage (against an old wall) |
5. We saw old graffitti scratched into the wall, and they also had a room where you could try out a helmet and a crossbow. That was not too bad.
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| Graffiti carved on the walls in the Tower of London |
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| A less than comfortable hat... |
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| ...but the crossbow was cool. |
Duncan,
ReplyDelete1. Monkey butt. Hahahah ROFL
2. Your question regarding the chained polar bear statue has been bugging me. Have you thought of any answers yet?
3. Those graffiti writers have very tidy handwriting.
4. I did not know the moat was full of poop. Perhaps I read that but I blocked it out of my memory, so thanks for bringing that back to me. I hope you did not add any poop.