The Liberties of the Tower, or the Tower Liberty is a small neighbourhood in the

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

, East London, which includes both

Tower Hill Tower Hill is the area surrounding the Tower of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is infamous for the public execution of high status prisoners from the late 14th to the mid 18th century. The execution site on the higher gro ...

and the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...

. The area was defined sometime after 1200 to provide an open area around the Tower to ensure its defensibility. The Liberty was an independent administrative unit from then until 1900 when it joined the former Metropolitan Borough of Stepney. The district maintains a ceremonial existence, with its custom of beating the bounds being a particularly well known example of the tradition.

History

The liberty was founded sometime after 1200, from land that had previously part of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

Components and purpose

The area originally comprised three small liberties: * Tower Within; The Tower, its moat and a small area of Tower Hill outside the

city wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...

. * Old Tower Without; on Tower Hill, outside the Tower and mostly within the city wall. * Great Tower Hill; on Tower Hill, outside the Tower and inside the city wall. In everyday speech, the term ''Great Tower Hill'' came to apply to Tower Hill inside the

, with ''Little Tower Hill'' referring to the area outside the wall. The presence of a unit called Great Tower Hill which covered only part of the area inside the city wall would later cause legal confusion. The liberties had an administration separate from the neighbouring county and city, headed by the

Constable of the Tower of London The Constable of the Tower is the most senior appointment at the Tower of London. In the Middle Ages a constable was the person in charge of a castle when the owner—the king or a nobleman—was not in residence. The Constable of the Tower had a ...

, appointed their own coroner, and had their own courthouse with general and quarter sessions and gaol. A force of constables was appointed for the area. The inhabitants had certain other privileges such as being able to claim any beast that fell from, and any swans under,

London Bridge Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It re ...

. The boundaries were presented by a Leet Jury in 1525, and again as surveyed by Haiward and Gascoyne in 1597. Scale Model Of The Tower Of London In The Tower Of London

Scale Model Of The Tower Of London In The Tower Of London

From the mid-seventeenth century, the liberty was part of a larger liberty, the Tower Division or Tower Hamlets which was independent of the county of

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

, carrying out Hundred and County responsibilities locally.

Expansion and evolution

The area of the

liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

expanded in 1686, when

letters patent Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, tit ...

granted by James II added three small exclaves; the

Old Artillery Ground The Old Artillery Ground is an area of land in Spitalfields, London formerly designated one of the Liberties of the Tower of London and Crown Land. Originally the outer precinct of the Priory and Hospital of St Mary Spital, it was converted to an ...

, Little Minories and the

Liberty of Wellclose Wellclose Square is a public square in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, between Cable Street to the north and The Highway to the south. The western edge, now called Ensign Street, was previously called Well Street. The southern edge was c ...

. These areas had come into the possession of the Crown when the religious houses that formerly administered them were dissolved. They were subsequently used for the storing of ordnance. From 1837, the liberty formed part of the Whitechapel Poor Law Union, a grouping of administrative areas that combined for the purposes of administering Poor Relief. From 1855, the area became part of the Whitechapel District for certain infrastructure purposes.

Administrative function phased out

Extra-parochial places were progressively eliminated and following the

Extra-Parochial Places Act 1857 In England and Wales, an extra-parochial area, extra-parochial place or extra-parochial district was a geographically defined area considered to be outside any ecclesiastical or civil parish. Anomalies in the parochial system meant they had no chu ...

, the

and Old Tower Without became civil parishes in 1858. The Old Artillery Ground became a civil parish in 1866, following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1867. The liberty had become obsolete by 1889; it was thought that the

Local Government Act 1888 Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

had removed the jurisdiction of the justices. However, the charter was found to be still in operation. The liberty was abolished on 25 June 1894, following a petition by the justices of the peace of the County of London under the Liberties Act 1850. It became part of the

County of London The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government A ...

in 1889, and the Whitechapel District was dissolved in 1894. Local government functions passed to the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney in 1900 and since 1965 has formed part of the

. Following boundary changes around the

Minories Minories ( ) is the name of a small former administrative unit, and also of a street in central London. Both the street and the former administrative area take their name from the Abbey of the Minoresses of St. Clare without Aldgate. Both are ...

in 1994, small parts are now in the

. The liberty continued as a franchise coroner's district. The Coroners (Amendment) Act 1926 provided that the district could be dissolved when a vacancy arose; when a vacancy occurred on 10 May 1939, an order was made on 30 November 1939 combining it with the east district. This came into effect on 1 January 1940.

Historic population data

The population was 3,995 in 1811 and 4,190 in 1831, the large majority of these people living in the former exclaves.

Myth and legend

The importance of the Tower has given its locality an important place in the wider national consciousness. The head of Brân the Blessed, a legendary giant, and King of Britain was said to have been buried on the ''White Hill'', identified with either Tower Hill or the spot where the White Tower now stands, facing France, in order that its power would ward of invasion, particularly from that direction. As long as it remained there, Britain would be safe from invasion. This myth is connected with the Celtic cult of the head. However, a jealous

King Arthur King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as ...

dug up the head, declaring the country would be protected only by his great strength, and this mistake led to the success of the Anglo-Saxon invasions. The name Brân is Welsh, and translates to English as

crow A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...

raven A raven is any of several larger-bodied bird species of the genus '' Corvus''. These species do not form a single taxonomic group within the genus. There is no consistent distinction between " crows" and "ravens", common names which are assigne ...

; leading to comparisons with the ravens of the Tower of London. It is said that if the ravens were to leave, the Tower, the Crown and Britain itself would fall.

Beating the bounds

The history of the liberty is still recognised in a triennial ceremony of beating the bounds organised jointly by The Tower authorities and the local parish of

All Hallows by the Tower All Hallows-by-the-Tower, at one time dedicated jointly to All Hallows (All Saints) and the Virgin Mary and sometimes known as All Hallows Barking, is an ancient Anglican church on Byward Street in the City of London, overlooking the Tower of ...

every third

Ascension Day The Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus Christ, also called Ascension Day, Ascension Thursday, or sometimes Holy Thursday, commemorates the Christian belief of the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven. It is one of the ecumenical (i.e., shared b ...

. Ascension Day, or ''Holy Thursday'', is a feast which falls 39 days after

Easter Sunday Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the ''Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel P ...

. The party moves along the Liberty's 31 boundary stones; at each one the Chaplain exclaims “Cursed is he who removeth his neighbours landmark”. The chief warder then says “Whack it boys, whack it” and the children beat the marker bounds with their willow wands. Children take part in such ceremonies because they will have the longest recollections of them, carrying the detailed knowledge of their neighbourhood throughout their lifetime. The boundary includes the inlet known as

Tower Dock Tower Dock is an inlet of the Thames immediately west of the Tower of London. Only the head of the dock remains with the rest having been filled in during the late 1950s. Location Tower Dock lay immediately west of the Tower of London's entranc ...

. The ceremony is referred to in the name of 'The Liberty Bounds'

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

(

Wetherspoons J D Wetherspoon plc (branded variously as Wetherspoon or Wetherspoons, and colloquially known as Spoons) is a pub company operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company was founded in 1979 by Tim Martin and is based in Watford. It ...

) in the former General Steam Navigation Company's headquarters on the corner of

Byward Street Byward Street is a road in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It forms part of the A3211 route and, if travelling eastward, is a short continuation of Lower Thames Street from a junction with Great Tower Street, t ...

and Trinity Square.

Open spaces

Tower Hill

* Trinity Square Gardens - including the

Tower Hill Memorial The Tower Hill Memorial is a pair of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials in Trinity Square Gardens, on Tower Hill in London, England. The memorials, one for the First World War and one for the Second, commemorate civilian, merchant ...

to merchant seamen. The gardens are positioned on the site of the execution of many high-status prisoners. * Wakefield Gardens * Tower Gardens

Tower of London

* Tower Moat *

Tower Green Tower Green is a space within the Tower of London, a royal castle in London, where two English Queens consort and several other British nobles were executed by beheading. It was considered more dignified for nobility to be executed away from ...

. Another site of several high-status executions.

Notable people

As well as many well-known members of the Tower of London community, the Liberties have also been home to: *

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...

, the founder of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

was born in the Liberty. *

Tubby Clayton The Reverend Philip Thomas Byard Clayton (12 December 1885 – 16 December 1972), known as "Tubby" Clayton, was an Anglican clergyman and the founder of Toc H. Life and career Philip Clayton was born in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, ...

, Anglican clergyman and founder of

Toc H Toc H (also TH) is an international Christian movement. The name is an abbreviation for Talbot House, "Toc" signifying the letter T in the signals spelling alphabet used by the British Army in World War I. A soldiers' rest and recreation centr ...

References

External links

Map of the Tower Liberties, 1754
British Museum, Crace Collection of Maps

East of London Family History Society
The All Hallows and Tower Beating the Bounds
Calendar Customs: A Guide to British Calendar Customs and Local Traditions {{DEFAULTSORT:Tower of London History of local government in Middlesex History of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Liberties of London Tower of London