White Tower 5 min read
The White Tower and the Line of Kings
The keep that gives the whole fortress its name has been standing for 950 years, and it has held the world's oldest museum display for more than three hundred of them.
Inner ward
White Tower
William the Conqueror's keep, begun in the 1070s and the reason the whole fortress is called the Tower. Inside: the Norman Chapel of St John and the Royal Armouries' Line of Kings.
- Time here
- 40–60 min (our estimate)
- Access
- Not step-free · Many stairs
- Where
- Inner ward · indoors
What you can see
- The Chapel of St John the Evangelist, an almost untouched Norman interior
- The Line of Kings: royal armours on carved wooden horses, displayed here since the 1680s
- Henry VIII's armour and the 'Armoury in Action' interactives
- The external wooden stair, a defensive feature since Norman times
Practical considerations
- Not step-free
- Many stairs
- Sound effects
- Queues at peak times
- The entrance is up an external staircase and the floors are linked by spiral stairs
- The only lift runs between the ground floor and the basement shop
- Allow longer at weekends: the stairs bottleneck
Checked 10 Sept 2026
Access details from Historic Royal Palaces' accessibility page. Time estimates are ours unless marked official.