Across from Parliament - Jewel Tower is the oldest building aside from the Abbey in Westminster. The Tower used to house the King's Closet - or the group responsible for storing, preserving, and delivering the monarch's clothes, jewels, and possession to him.
You can only go up to the second floor of the Tower, which is where I began. I read all about weights and measures. In the early days of England the Tower was used as the primary place to test weights and measures because the stone kept the the temperature consistent and the instruments used to measure were very sensitive. Here is the original measurement system used by The Stock Exchange.Weights and measures are no longer done at the Tower - because over time the noise from the road and the reconstruction of the Tower - to be as close to it's eleventh century build as possible and to be structurally safe caused the windows to be redone and as a result the temperature in the tower has changed over time. Also, the Stock Exchange office moved from the Tower.
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| From bottom to top it's: bushel, Half- Bushel, Peck, Gallon, Half-Gallon, Quart, Pint, Half-Pint, Gill, Half-Gill and Quarter-Gill. |
Also on this floor are some amazing finds. The Tower - being part of a Palace - once was surround by a moat - which has since been dried up and paved over. However, after the moat was dug out they found a sword - tempered in the old style. It reminded me of the Sword of Errindell from Lord of the Rings, except this sword was only cleaved at the hilt to the blade.
The second floor of the tower details the building of Parliament and the evolution of the House of Lords and House of Commons - including the great fire and all that. I will expand on this later on in a different post.
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