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
Families
Ravens, armour, a polar bear and a jewel thief
The Tower is a brilliant day with children if you pace it, pick the right interiors, and choose which stories to tell. Here is how, with the practical details checked on the date shown.
What works, by age
- Under 5: free entry. The Crown Jewels (moving walkway, level access), the ravens, the wire lions and the green. Pushchairs cannot go up the White Tower; there is a buggy park at its foot.
- 5 to 8: add the White Tower for the armoured horses and Henry VIII's armour; the top floor has things to lift and aim. Skip the Bloody and Beauchamp Towers: dark, cramped, and about murder.
- 9 to 12: the full family route, plus the Bloody Tower if they like a mystery. Historic Royal Palaces warns the Yeoman Warder tour "may seem frightening or scary to young children"; from about nine it is usually the highlight.
- Teenagers: the prisoners route works, and the Beauchamp graffiti and Hew Draper's horoscope land well.
The family audio guide
The official family tour (£14 for two adults and up to three children, English only) is voiced by two ghostly child guides and pairs well with the family route. Book it with your tickets and collect handsets from the Beefeater Shop just past the entrance; bring wired headphones. Some handsets also offer the "Time Explorers" quiz game. Checked 10 Sept 2026.
Breaks, toilets, food
- Baby changing and accessible toilets in the Brick Tower behind the Jewel House; a Changing Places toilet in the New Armouries building (radar key from café staff).
- The New Armouries Café has indoor seating and is calmest before noon. Benches on Tower Green.
- No re-entry, so eat inside or finish first. Bring water.
- Gun salutes on the wharf on set dates are very loud; check HRP's dates if your child dislikes bangs.
Difficult subjects
The Tower is a place of execution and imprisonment and it does not hide that. Each of our stories carries a content note where it needs one, and the family route uses stories about animals, ravens, a jewel thief who got away with it and a wife who smuggled her husband out in a dress. The execution site on Tower Green is a quiet lawn with a memorial; you can walk across it without discussing it, or use it to talk about what happened, as you choose.
Stories to tell on the way round
Middle Tower and the entrance 4 min read
A polar bear in the Thames
For six hundred years the entrance to the Tower was guarded by lions, and in the 1250s a white bear from Norway was let out on a rope to fish in the river.
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.
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.
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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.
Historic Royal Palaces also runs occasional relaxed sessions for neurodivergent and learning-disabled children and their families before public opening; see its what's-on listings for dates.