The Tower's Medieval Past through Archaeology
Historic Royal Palaces Podcast
Historic Royal Palaces
4.7 • 701 Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Archaeology can offer us new discoveries into the Tower of London's medieval past, as well as insights into the lives of the community that lived and worked there. In 2019, and in the summer of 2025, we undertook one of the most important excavations at the Tower for a generation, just outside the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula.
Now for the first time ever, we have detailed information about the ordinary people who lived, worshipped, and died at the Tower, but what more can we learn from these excavations? To find out more, we join Alfred Hawkins, Curator of Historic Buildings.
Read about the recent archaeological digs at the Tower of London in our blog posts:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to the Historic Royal Palaces podcast. I'm Alfred Hawkins and I am |
| 0:10.6 | curator of historic buildings here at the Tower of London, but I'm also an archaeologist. |
| 0:17.7 | Archaeology is one of the best tools that we have, and it can offer us evidence not only about the buildings that people lived in, but also people's lives. |
| 0:28.6 | And it can do this in a way that documentary evidence just can't, through objects, through lost buildings, and even through the most sensitive record of someone's life, |
| 0:40.2 | their skeleton. So in 2019 and in the summer of 2025, we've undertaken two of the most important |
| 0:49.4 | excavations in a generation here at the Tower of London. Both of these excavations took place outside the |
| 0:57.5 | chapel of St Peter Advincula, where many famous people are buried. And through these excavations, |
| 1:03.4 | we have for the first time ever detailed information about the ordinary people who lived, worshipped and died at the Tower of London. |
| 1:14.1 | But what can we really learn from these excavations? |
| 1:18.3 | Let's find out. |
| 1:26.1 | Please be aware that this episode contains content relating to the excavation of human remains. |
| 1:33.4 | These remains will be reinterred in the crypt of the chapel of St Peter Advincula, |
| 1:39.1 | ensuring their continued rest within a consecrated space. |
| 1:43.9 | Archaeological works at our palaces, and particularly those that impact human remains, |
| 1:49.0 | are always undertaken to ensure the dignity and respect of those individuals. |
| 1:55.0 | So today you join me once again in the chapel of St Peter Advincula. |
| 2:03.7 | And dear listeners, I'm not going to lie to you, the reason we are inside rather than outside |
| 2:08.9 | actually looking at the excavations which we're going to be talking about today is because |
| 2:13.5 | London is incredibly loud and we tried and there were too many sirens and various other noises. |
| 2:19.3 | So you are joining me now inside the chapel of St Peter and Vinkula, which is the Tower of London's parish church built between 1519 and 1520. |
| 2:32.3 | And if my voice sounds familiar in this wonderful space, it could be because it does, |
| 2:38.2 | because we've previously done a Historic Royal Palace's podcast, a space I love, in this very room. |
... |
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