Bloody Tower 5 min read
What happened to the Princes in the Tower?
Two boys walked into the Tower in the spring of 1483 and were never seen leaving it. What the record shows, what a box of bones proves, and what nobody can say.
Independent · unofficial · checked by hand
A thousand years of stories. A visit made yours.
Find the right ticket, plan your time, and uncover the people and places that make the Tower unforgettable.
- Independent recommendations. We are not the attraction and we do not sell tickets. Official options are always listed, commission or not.
- Practical itineraries. Timings are ranges built from verified access and queue information, not a fantasy schedule.
- Stories with sources. Every story separates fact, dispute and legend, and cites where it came from. Some links earn us a commission.
Build your visit
Tell us your time, your party and your interests. Get a plan you can trust.
The planner uses verified opening, access and queue information and three curated routes. It explains every choice, shows what it leaves out, and never invents a schedule it cannot back up.
Start with a quick preset, then adjust anything.
- Two hoursJewels, keep, and the green
- Half a dayAdd the Yeoman Warder tour and a break
- With childrenRavens, armour, a polar bear
No account needed. Your plan is saved on this device and can be shared with a link that contains no personal details.
Find your kind of experience
Four honest ways to do the Tower
Most visitors need standard admission and nothing else. Here is when the others earn their price.
- Independent visitStandard admission, £37.00 adult, includes the Crown Jewels, the White Tower and a Yeoman Warder tour.
- Early accessWatch the gates unlocked and walk into the Jewel House before the queue exists. Worth it on peak days only.
- Family visitA paced route with animals, armour and stories chosen to thrill rather than horrify, plus where the toilets are.
- Deeper guided experienceA small group with a guide and a private Beefeater audience, or a private Blue Badge guide for your party.
Prices checked 10 Sept 2026 on the official site. See the full comparison.
Stories worth finding
Hiding in plain sight
Each story is tied to a place you can stand in, marks what is fact, disputed or legend, and can be added to your visit with one tap.
Martin Tower 4 min read
The morning Colonel Blood stole the crown
In 1671 a man dressed as a parson flattened the crown of England with a mallet and walked out with it under his cloak. Then the king gave him a pension.
The ravens 4 min read
The ravens: a legend younger than it looks
If the ravens leave, the Tower and the kingdom will fall. It is a good story, told with a straight face, and it is probably Victorian.
Tower Green and the scaffold site 5 min read
The countess who walked her husband out of the Tower
The night before his execution in 1716, the Earl of Nithsdale left the Tower in a woman's cloak. His wife had planned every step, and then wrote it all down.
Choose a route
Three routes we would actually walk
Each one says who it suits, what it includes, what it leaves out and how long it really takes, with the practical details checked on the date shown.
First-time visitors · Limited time
First visit essentials
The Crown Jewels, the White Tower and the stories in between, in an order that beats the worst of the queues.
- Duration
- 3–4 hours
- Stops
- 9 stops
- Access
- Some stops are stairs-only
Families
Families and fascinating stories
Ravens, armour, a polar bear that fished in the Thames and a jewel thief: a paced visit for children aged about five to twelve.
- Duration
- 3–4 hours
- Stops
- 7 stops
- Access
- Some stops are stairs-only
History enthusiasts
Prisoners, power and intrigue
A deeper route through the prison towers, the graffiti and the execution site, for visitors who already know the Crown Jewels are there.
- Duration
- 4–5 hours
- Stops
- 12 stops
- Access
- Some stops are stairs-only
Explore the Tower
Sixteen places, one schematic
A plan that shows how the fortress fits together, with a full list for anyone who would rather not use a map. Tap a place to see what is there, what it involves and which stories belong to it.
Independent ticket advice
What to compare before you buy
- What admission is included. Some tours are a guide on top of a ticket you must buy separately; some include it; the after-hours tours include no daytime entry at all.
- Which queue you are skipping. There are three: the ticket office, security, and the Jewel House. No ticket removes the last one; timing does.
- Where a guide can and cannot guide. Historic Royal Palaces does not allow external guides to lead inside the Jewel House or the White Tower.
- What is already free. The Yeoman Warder tour is included in standard admission. The Ceremony of the Keys is free if you can get a ticket.
How we earn
Links to Viator are affiliate links: if you book through them we earn a commission at no cost to you. Official Historic Royal Palaces tickets earn us nothing and are listed first whenever they are the best choice. Bookings are always completed with the named provider.
Read the full disclosureMeet the editor
Edited by Zoey Davies, checked by hand
Tower of London Tour has been published independently since 2019. It began as a collection of tower-by-tower guides with links to tickets, and in 2026 it was rebuilt around a planner, a story library and an honest ticket comparison.
It is edited by Zoey Davies with a small team of freelance tour guides, and it is not connected to Historic Royal Palaces. Every price, opening time and access detail on the site shows the date it was last checked, and the check is done by a person looking at the official page, not by a script. More about the site and how we work.
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Anything you add is saved on this device without an account. Share it with a link that contains only the stops, print it, or switch to on-site mode on the day. If you want a copy by email, that is optional and comes last.