tower of london twilight tour

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Twilight Tours at the Tower of London

November 7, 2019 by Fiona Maclean Leave a Comment

Last Updated on November 8, 2019

A Spine-Tingling Tour of the Tower of London.

November marks the start of dark, wintery nights when any sane person snuggles up in front of the fire in the evenings. For those with a robust constitution though, there’s an opportunity to see the Tower of London as you’ve never seen it before.  Through the winter months until April 2020, on selected Sundays, you can visit the Tower at Night, guided by the Yeoman Warders around the battlements, through the courtyards, to Traitor’s Gate and the Bloody Tower. 

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, The Tower of London is usually very busy – nearly three million people visit each year.  A Twilight Tour lets you see some of the key parts of the Tower of London when most visitors have left for the evening.

I take the Tower of London for granted ( perhaps like a lot of Londoners) and haven’t visited inside since I was in my early teens.  So I jumped at the chance to go on one of this year’s first Twilight Tours.  We even got to chat with two of the yeoman of the guards who took us around the Tower.  Did you know, they live in the Tower of London, with their families in lodgings which date back to the 13th Century.  They even have their own pub within the grounds of the Tower! 

To become a Yeoman Warder, you have to be a former Warrant Officer or Senior Non-Commissioned Officer and have served at least 22 years in one of the Armed Forces.  You also have to hold a long service and good conduct medal.  And, then you need to be selected – competition is fierce and we learnt from one our guides that he was picked from 175 applicants!  But, not many people can give their address as ‘The Tower of London’ and both our guides said they regularly had to pinch themselves when they woke up to make sure they were not dreaming.

One of their roles is to take visitors like us on tours around the Tower.  The earliest part of the Tower, the ‘White Tower’ was built by William the Conqueror as a way to keep an eye on his new subjects.  He actually picked a site that was originally a Roman Fort – as our guide said – what better foundations and you can see part of the Roman building at the base of the Tower, extending out into what would have been the Roman walls around the City of London.  If you visit the Tower of London during normal opening hours, you’ll find the Royal Armouries collections, an original executioner’s block from the 18th century and more.  The basement of the White Tower is thought to be where prisoners such as Guy Fawkes were tortured and interrogated.

The curtain wall to the north, east and western sides were built by King Henry III in 1238 and further major development was carried out by his son Edward I between 1275 and 1285.  Although part of the complex was used as a prison, for the most part at this time, the Tower of London was a grand palace which was a royal residence.  

In the 16th and 17th Century, the Tower of London became predominantly a prison and various members of the Royal Family ( for example Elizabeth the I, Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were held here).  Two of the wives of Henry VIII,  Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard number among the 10 prisoners actually executed within the Tower on Tower Green – most prisoners were taken to the public execution site at Tower Hill. 

The last execution was of German Spy Josef Jakobs in 1941 and the final prisoners to be held in the Tower were the notorious Kray Twins in 1952, who were both temporarily held in the military prison for assaulting a police constable who tried to arrest them for being absent without leave from their military service in September 1952.

We learnt that, although the Yeomen of the Guard are housed in the Tower, there are certain parts which are unpopular because they are said to be haunted.  Stories are told of the two brothers, The Princes in the Tower, Edward V and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury, of Lady Jane Grey and of Anne Boleyn walking around the White Tower with her head under her arm.  Nevertheless, after a peek at the Tower of London out of hours, I think I’d be happy to put up with the odd ghost for such an impressive place to live.

If you are interested in a Twilight Tour of the Tower, tickets are priced at £27.50 or £25 for Historic Royal Palace members and can be bought from the Tower of London website

About Fiona Maclean

London based freelance writer and marketing consultant. I edit London-Unattached.com and write for a number of other publications. With a music degree and a background in marketing across many sectors, my passions include all types of music, food, restaurants, wine and travel

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Tower Twilight Tours

Date and time.

Yeoman Warders lead exclusive after-hours tours of the Tower of London, taking in some of the gruesome sights and extraordinary stories that make it world famous.

You will have unique access to the UK’s most visited historic attraction. Take in world-famous sights such as Traitors’ Gate, the Scaffold Site , and outside the Bloody Tower . Be appalled and amazed by tales of prisoners and past residents, royal gossip, and secrets kept within these ancient walls.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

This is an outdoor tour, over uneven cobbles and up spiral stone staircases, which does not include the Crown Jewels or any of the main towers. Suitable for over 12s only.

1 October - 10 December 2023

Meeting point: West Gate

TICKETING INFORMATION

Standard Price: £30.00 Members: £25.00

Suitable for over 12s only.

Event organiser is Historic Royal Palaces .

Disclaimer : All information was correct when the listing was prepared. Any questions about the event should be directed to the event organiser.

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Twilight Tour — See the Tower of London at night (Oct 2023)

This event has already passed

Craig’s review… I'm sitting on a wet bench waiting for the Tower of London Twilight Tour to start. This part of London is always empty at this time of night and you can linger along the waterfront and not see a soul for five minutes. All of the office lights are glowing over the other side of the river because that's where all the life is. People are still working over there -- I can see them moving in their rooms.

If I hadn't been on this tour before then I'd probably be a bit worried because the gift shop is all locked up and the ticket booths are boarded up as well, but you just have to be patient and wait. The Tower has been here for a thousand years and it won't be rushed. Eventually a Yeoman Warder comes along and gathers us all up and I'm trying to count how many people are in our group. I'm guessing that there are probably about fifty people tonight.

Skip forward in time... the tour has ended now (I couldn't really write anything in the dark), and it was pretty much identical to the Yeoman Warder Tour that you can do during the day, but with a couple of bonuses thrown in. For starters, you actually get to see inside a few of the towers. You can't do that on the Yeoman Warder Tour because the crowds are too huge, but on the Twilight Tour they're much more manageable. But the bigger bonus is the dark. The Tower is totally deserted at this time of night so it's literally just the Yeoman Warder and you. What low lights they do have are of the sodium glow-variety, barely reflecting in the puddles on the pavement, so you really get a sense of how it must have felt when it was still a fortress.

Traitor's Gate & St Thomas's Tower

The tour kicked off by the Byward Tower where he spent ten minutes telling us about the history of the fortress from Norman times right up to the building of the moat. The cold wind kept him talking at quite a pace so he could get us all moving before we froze to death, then he marched us up to Traitor's Gate and took us inside St. Thomas's Tower.

It was in here that we got to see Edward III's royal quarters, and the exact spot where Henry VI was murdered. Then we climbed up some winding stone stairs to the Wakefield Tower and along an elevated walkway to the Lanthorn Tower. I particularly enjoyed this bit because you get a fantastic view of the White Tower and Tower Bridge all lit up in floodlights.

Then it was back down to ground level for a walk around the armouries building and hospital block, where our guide proudly pointed out the curtained window where he lived (I will happily admit to a pang of jealously).

Waterloo Barracks & Tower Green

He skirted around the side of the White Tower now, and past the Waterloo Barracks where the Crown Jewels are kept. Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside either of them, and that is why I definitely recommend coming back during the day because you'll be missing out on two of the highlights otherwise. Then we saw Tower Green and the execution spot where Henry VIII chopped off his enemies' heads. The Yeoman Warder gave another good talk here about all the gruesome beheadings and gory deaths, and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself... a bit too much. I'm just glad that he didn't have an axe handy because he might have been tempted to demonstrate the deaths on one of us.

The Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula

After that came my favourite bit: the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. This place is only accessible on one of these Yeoman Warder Tours or during a Sunday service , and it's definitely worth seeing inside. It's not the room that makes it memorable but what they've got buried under the floor, because this is where the headless bodies of Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey and the Earl of Essex ended up.

And that's it. After that he walks you back to the Byward Tower and boots you out.

So is it worth doing? Well, if I'm being totally honest then I think I prefer just visiting during the day because the Twilight Tour is basically the same as a Yeoman Warder Tour, but if you go during the daytime then you'll also get to see inside the White Tower, the Bloody Tower, plus all the other towers, and see the Crown Jewels as well... not to mention all of the gift shops and restaurants, which are closed up at night.

As atmospheric as the Twilight Tour is, it just didn't give me the goosebumps in the same way that the Ceremony of the Keys did. So my advice to you is this: go during the day, do a Yeoman Warder Tour, and also apply for some tickets to see the Ceremony of the Keys. Then you'll be getting the best out of the Tower.

Worth a visit? ★ ★ ★ Value for money? ★ ★ ☆ Good for kids? ☆ ☆ ☆ Easy to get to? ★ ★ ★

I also recommend… If you enjoy Tower of London then you might like to visit Hampton Court Palace , Tower Hill (you can walk it in less than 2 mins) and Windsor Castle . There are plenty more things to do at the Tower of London , like the Ceremony of the Keys and Sunday service at the Chapel Royal

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Your comments and questions

c latham Do these tours run all year long

Craig Hi C Latham. No, they're usually just once a week throughout the winter, after the clocks go back. I suppose it wouldn't be dark enough if they did it during the summer

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Tower of London Twilight Tours

• Things to do, Walks and tours

Time Out says

Murder, torture, executions. Plenty of macabre activities have taken place in the 'Bloody Tower' aka, The Tower of London. Join one of these twilight tours hosted by uniformed Yeoman Warders to hear all about the buildings spooky stories and gruesome history. The tour takes place outdoors over uneven cobbles and up spiral stone staircases. Suitable clothing is advised. Booking essential. Age 12+. 

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Shakespeare's Globe

Twilight walking tour.

Be transported back to London’s ‘Kingdom of Night’ and discover Shakespeare’s fascination with the dark on our Twilight Walking Tour of the Bankside area and beyond.

Murderous midnights in Macbeth , early morning treason in Julius Caesar , after-dark scheming in Henry IV Part I & II . References to sinister night-time activity are rife in Shakespeare’s plays.

Follow our expert Guides into the City of London and allow them to invoke the ‘absolute darkness’ of the 16th Century and discover where Shakespeare’s fascination with night might have come from.

Plus: What was a ‘linkboy’? Who was Elizabeth Holland? Why was Bankside originally known as ‘The Stews’? And how were all of these important to London’s nocturnal world in Shakespeare’s time? There’s only one way to find out – your twilight adventure awaits.

Twilight Walking Tours start and end in the Main Foyer of Shakespeare’s Globe. 

‘What a fearful night is this! There’s two or three of us have seen strange sights.’

Julius Caesar , Act I, scene 3

This is a Walking Tour of the Bankside area and does not include a visit to the Globe Theatre.

Tickets Adult £20 Under 16 £15

This event takes place on Bankside and the surrounding area

Twilight Walking Tours start and end in the Main Foyer of Shakespeare’s Globe .

Visit time approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes

Part of Guided Tours

Plan your visit

Find out how to get here, where to stay and read our FAQs.

Everything you need to know about our access offering, including a full list of upcoming access performances.

Twilight Walking Tour Photography by Pete Le May (February 2023)

Photography by Pete Le May

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They are on Sunday evenings at 7pm for 90 minutes, well after twilight, and seem to get great reviews - I'll be going myself next month as the thought of a fairly private Yeoman Warder-led tour around the Tower at night sounds intriguing to me. They only admit about 30 people each night.

Note these are outside-only - no access to view the Crown Jewels.

10 replies to this topic

Excellent, Beauchamp - will definitely do this and will be sure to report back if they suddenly experience profound hearing loss...I'll leave it to the last

The ceremony of the Keys is also worth looking at. Difficult to get tickets, but a couple of years ago when we went it only cost £5. It is only a small group with a Yeoman Warder, after the ceremony you can ask any questions. It is very atmospheric standing near Traitors Gate in the dark watching the ceremony before moving to beside The White Tower for questions.

Upon seeing this post in January, I purchased tickets for this past Sunday, and the tour was excellent. It was very cool (albeit a little spooky, but cool) to be at the tower at night, and it was outstanding to be there with only a small group. Our Yeoman guide was outstanding. Highly recommend. Thank you for the suggestion.

re: #4 - very glad you enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed this tour myself a few weeks ago. Cannot recommend it enough to anyone lucky enough to be able to score a ticket. Truly a special experience. I enjoyed it much more than the Ceremony of the Keys (have been a few times), and would repeat this before repeating the Ceremony of the Keys.

For anyone considering this tour, we DID go inside the Medieval Apartments for part of the tour, and inside the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, so the tour was not all outside. Was a nice respite from the chilly weather.

re: #1 Beauchamp - I asked about procedures for removing the Crown Jewels, and while my Yeoman Warder guide did not experience sudden hearing loss, they were purposefully vague in their response, only that it occurs several days beforehand.

I have been watching ths tour for about 2 months now and no tickets beyond March have opened yet. March 31 is the last date they list. Do they not do them for summer? Is it always only on Sundays?

I believe they only do this tour during the winter months ending in March.

Since the sun doesn’t set till late in the summer, it wouldn’t have the effect.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket for my visit last year in March, it really was an interesting tour, with the “twilight” bit just adding to the ambiance.

I’m not sure what tour it was a few days ago but as my group was standing waiting for the Ceremony of the Keys to start another tour group also turned up to watch, who looked like they had just come from a tour of the towers.

I thought that would have been a great tour to do and combine a tour of the tower with the Ceremony of the Keys. I didn’t know about it myself so was surprised when the other group turned up. As I thought my group would have been the only ones there.

Yes it must have been that. Thanks.

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Twilight Tours at the Tower of London

Fiona Maclean

Updated on: February 21, 2024

Last Updated on February 21, 2024

A Spine-Tingling Tour of the Tower of London.

November marks the start of dark, wintery nights when any sane person snuggles up in front of the fire in the evenings. For those with a robust constitution though, there’s an opportunity to see the Tower of London as you’ve never seen it before.  Through the winter months until April 2020, on selected Sundays, you can visit the Tower at Night, guided by the Yeoman Warders around the battlements, through the courtyards, to Traitor’s Gate and the Bloody Tower. 

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, The Tower of London is usually very busy – nearly three million people visit each year.  A Twilight Tour lets you see some of the key parts of the Tower of London when most visitors have left for the evening.

I take the Tower of London for granted ( perhaps like a lot of Londoners) and haven’t visited inside since I was in my early teens.  So I jumped at the chance to go on one of this year’s first Twilight Tours.  We even got to chat with two of the yeoman of the guards who took us around the Tower.  Did you know, they live in the Tower of London, with their families in lodgings which date back to the 13th Century.  They even have their own pub within the grounds of the Tower! 

To become a Yeoman Warder, you have to be a former Warrant Officer or Senior Non-Commissioned Officer and have served at least 22 years in one of the Armed Forces.  You also have to hold a long service and good conduct medal.  And, then you need to be selected – competition is fierce and we learnt from one our guides that he was picked from 175 applicants!  But, not many people can give their address as ‘The Tower of London’ and both our guides said they regularly had to pinch themselves when they woke up to make sure they were not dreaming.

One of their roles is to take visitors like us on tours around the Tower.  The earliest part of the Tower, the ‘White Tower’ was built by William the Conqueror as a way to keep an eye on his new subjects.  He actually picked a site that was originally a Roman Fort – as our guide said – what better foundations and you can see part of the Roman building at the base of the Tower, extending out into what would have been the Roman walls around the City of London.  If you visit the Tower of London during normal opening hours, you’ll find the Royal Armouries collections, an original executioner’s block from the 18th century and more.  The basement of the White Tower is thought to be where prisoners such as Guy Fawkes were tortured and interrogated.

The curtain wall to the north, east and western sides were built by King Henry III in 1238 and further major development was carried out by his son Edward I between 1275 and 1285.  Although part of the complex was used as a prison, for the most part at this time, the Tower of London was a grand palace which was a royal residence.  

In the 16th and 17th Century, the Tower of London became predominantly a prison and various members of the Royal Family ( for example Elizabeth the I, Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were held here).  Two of the wives of Henry VIII,  Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard number among the 10 prisoners actually executed within the Tower on Tower Green – most prisoners were taken to the public execution site at Tower Hill. 

The last execution was of German Spy Josef Jakobs in 1941 and the final prisoners to be held in the Tower were the notorious Kray Twins in 1952, who were both temporarily held in the military prison for assaulting a police constable who tried to arrest them for being absent without leave from their military service in September 1952.

We learnt that, although the Yeomen of the Guard are housed in the Tower, there are certain parts which are unpopular because they are said to be haunted.  Stories are told of the two brothers, The Princes in the Tower, Edward V and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury, of Lady Jane Grey and of Anne Boleyn walking around the White Tower with her head under her arm.  Nevertheless, after a peek at the Tower of London out of hours, I think I’d be happy to put up with the odd ghost for such an impressive place to live.

If you are interested in a Twilight Tour of the Tower, tickets are priced at £27.50 or £25 for Historic Royal Palace members and can be bought from the Tower of London website

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Twilight Tours at the Tower of London

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Take a tour of one of London’s oldest and most infamous landmarks after dark if you dare. The Yeoman wardens will take you through an after-hours tour of some of grisly stories and famous and macabrely named sites like the Traitors’ Gate, the Scaffold Site and the Bloody Tower. You’ll hear chilling tales, and the regal secrets of the tower’s history. One for history fans who don’t like crowds and aren’t afraid of ghosts!

Tours take place on Sunday nights, and note that it’s an outdoor tour with cobbles and ancient spiral staircases with no access to the Crown Jewels or any of the main towers.

( Becky Lima-Matthews )

• Adults: Advance sales: £27.00
• 226 m from Tower Hill District Line Circle Line
• 299 m from Tower Gateway Docklands Light Rail
• 0.7 km from Aldgate Circle Line Metropolitan Line

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