Podcasts · Historic Royal Palaces Podcast

The Tower's Medieval Past through Archaeology

1 Jan 2026 · 32 min

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:

Life, death and worship in the Tower of London, Part I | Historic Royal Palaces

Life, death and worship in the Tower of London, Part II | Historic Royal Palaces

Links in the notes 2

• https://www.hrp.org.uk/blog/two-skeletons-found-at-the-tower-of-london/
• https://www.hrp.org.uk/blog/discoveries-from-excavations-outside-the-chapel-of-st-peter-ad-vincula/

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