A Space I Love S2 – The Tower of London's Chapel Royal with Alfred Hawkins

Historic Royal Palaces Podcast

Historic Royal Palaces

London, Palace, Tower, Historic, Conservation, Royal, Lecture, Learning, Kensington, Hampton, Kew, Banqueting, History, Court, Of, House, Palaces

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2023

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week is the third part of our mini-series on spaces we love. We’ll be joining Assistant Curator Alfred Hawkins who has chosen to take us into the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula at the Tower of London.

As the burial place of Anne Boleyn, the Chapel Royal holds a special place to many history fans, but there is so much more to this community place of worship. Alfred reveals that the myths of history can be just as important as the truth.

To find out more on the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula go to:

www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/whats-on/chapel-royal-of-st-peter-ad-vincula

Watch our mini documentary on the Downfall of Anne Boleyn:

Anne Boleyn | The Downfall and Execution of a Tudor Queen

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello listeners, welcome to this new mini-series on the Historic Royal Palaces podcast.
0:06.0	I'm Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator, and in this six-part series, our curator's team will be venturing into some of our favourite spaces in the palaces.
0:15.0	Now, my colleagues and I have chosen these spaces especially in the hope that we can transport you to some of our favourite moments in history.
0:22.6	So please get ready to escape to the past with us.
0:28.6	So we are stood on the walkway towards the Beecham Tower in the inner ward of the Tower of London and it is absolutely
0:39.3	freezing and slightly overcast but it looks as though the clouds are going away so
0:43.8	might actually be a nice day and we're going to walk into my favourite place in the whole
0:49.4	world which is the chapel royal of st peter ad vincular which is the towers parish church so i Advincula, which is the Tower's Parish Church.
0:56.0	So I am Alfred Hawkins and I am Assistant Curator of the Tower of London and the Banqueting House Whitehall.
1:03.0	So it's my job to look after the historic buildings and archaeology of the site and advise on protection and sharing the stories of both of those wonderful places.
1:13.6	So it is about half eight in the morning so the tower is not open to the public.
1:18.6	So at this time of day we usually just scurry around trying to get everything done so that it's nice for our visitors when they arrive.
1:26.6	So you might hear ravens, but you might also hear
1:29.5	builders and cars and leaf blowers and everything else. So it's never quite quiet at the tower
1:36.9	because we're in the middle of the city and it is a working place and a home for about 140 people.
1:47.0	But it's as quiet as it ever gets. So the place we're about to go into is special not only because it's the burial place of
1:52.0	Amberlin and Catherine Howard, but it's also the parish church of the Tower of London.
1:57.0	And it has been, there has been a church in this location since before the White Tower existed.
2:02.6	So its heritage spans about a thousand years and it is an incredibly special place.
2:08.6	So I'll head inside now I think.
2:16.6	So we're just outside the western entrance to the Chapel of St Peter Adventuilus,
2:21.3	so we have to go down a set of steps and then open a door in order to get in.
	...

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