Today's photo shows 925 years of construction in just one frame.
The White Tower, which gives the Tower of London its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and used mostly as a prison in it's early years. It served to dominate London and let the populace know who was in charge. Later kings and queens extended the castle over the following centuries, adapting it to meet the changing military technology of the times.
The surrounding area has undergone many changes over the centuries while the Tower has just had minor cosmetic surgeries, having retained the same layout since 1285.
The construction has been aided by wars, fires and bombings in addition to straight urban decay and renewal. The great fire of London reached the western approaches to the Tower, off the photo to the left. The Port of London Authority building sits on the edge of Tower Hill where some 112 public executions were held over a span of 400 years. Being beheaded inside the Tower walls away from the gaze of the general public was a rare honor bestowed on few. Only seven people were executes within the Tower walls (more were likely murdered surreptitiously) until the First and Second World Wars where 12 men were executed by firing squad for spying.
The street that runs behind the Port of London Authority Building is called Pepys street after the diarist Samuel Pepys who lived here at the time of the great fire. The fire didn't reach this far. The building behind the PoLA Building with the windows surrounded with ivy is the Doubletree Hotel on Pepys street and behind that, not visible, is Fenchurch Street railway station. Besides urban decay and renewal, most recent construction here was enabled by the Luftwaffe Demolition Company in the Second World War.
And then, St. Mary Axe, the Gherkin, built in 2001-3 on the site of the old Baltic Exchange, damaged beyond economic repair by an IRA bomb in 1992.
Yet curiously, despite all this demolition and rebuilding, Pepys would still be familiar with the streets some 350 years after he lived and worked in this area, and tucked away in various corners he'd still see buildings that were there in his time.
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