Tower of London: Medieval Prison
Gone Medieval
History Hit
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Locked in the Tower of London after hours, Matt Lewis searches for his vanished co‑host Dr. Eleanor Janega. They swap wild escape stories of Ranulf Flambard and Roger Mortimer, and shiver inside the Bloody Tower discussing legendary prisoners including Princes in the Tower, Henry VI and William Wallace. Along the way, they meet a former Tower resident with a ghost in his bedroom, an unused toilet for Hitler, and a menagerie of spectral bears, barrels and bile.
MORE
The Princes In The Tower
Roger Mortimer: The Usurper
Recorded at the Tower of London with thanks to Historic Royal Palaces.
Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis and Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. |
| 0:08.7 | We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. |
| 0:20.3 | We cross centuries and continents to delve |
| 0:22.8 | into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here. |
| 0:30.0 | Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Good evening, Gone Medievalers. I'm saying good evening. I don't know when you're listening to this, |
| 0:43.6 | but it's evening and that's important where I am right now. We are back inside the Tower of London |
| 0:49.2 | with huge thanks to historic royal palaces. If you listen to the last episode, which I really, |
| 0:53.6 | really hope you did. Eleanor came to the last episode, which I really, really hope you did, |
| 0:54.5 | Eleanor came to the tower to find out all about its history as a royal palace. |
| 0:59.8 | And we haven't heard a peep from her since. |
| 1:01.8 | We're all a little bit worried that she might have fallen foul |
| 1:04.3 | of the other main use of this incredible building as a prison. |
| 1:10.1 | As Ellen had been taken prisoner and locked in the tower, |
| 1:12.5 | well, producer Amory and I have come down here to try and break Eleanor out. We're determined to |
| 1:17.3 | find out what's happened. We're going to scour the Tower of London. But we're here after hours. |
| 1:22.0 | There's no visitors here. There's a few lights on in windows. We stood right outside the immense white tower, |
| 1:30.5 | looking up at it against an inky blue sky with the tower lit up, the white stone sort of |
| 1:37.6 | glowing against the darkness of the sky. Or it's so atmospheric I could definitely stand here |
| 1:42.7 | all night and just look at this |
| 1:44.4 | but I'm also a little bit worried that Eleanor might be suffering in a cell somewhere |
| 1:48.6 | and that we ought to make an effort to go and find her and see if we can break her out. |
| 1:51.5 | Come on Amory, let's go. |
... |
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