Four bridges with their causeways spanned the moat. To the west stood the Lion Gate bridge; a second was (and still is), that of the Middle Tower; the third faces the river at Traitor’s Gate under St Thomas’s Tower; and the fourth is that at the eastern extremity of the fortress, near to a dam which connected the tower above the Iron Gate with the tower formerly called Galleyman’s Tower, or “the tower leading to the Iron Gate.”
Middle Tower, the first by which the present visitor to the Tower enters the fortress, has been greatly modernised in its upper part. Since the destruction of the Lion Tower it has become the first gate of the Citadel, its name having been gained by its original position between the Lion and Byward Towers, to the latter of which it formed the outwork: it protects the western and landward approach to the fortress. Originally the Middle Tower was coated with Portland stone. It has a double portcullis, which can still be used if required. In front of this Tower, in mediæval days, stood a drawbridge, of which however, no trace remains, the moat now being spanned by a bridge of stone 130 feet in length and 20 feet in width at its narrowest part.
It was in front of this gateway that Elizabeth, on returning a Queen to the Tower, which she had left five years before a prisoner, alighted from her horse and kneeling on the ground returned thanks to God, “who had,” as Bishop Burnet writes in his “History of the Reformation,” “delivered her from a danger so imminent; and for an escape as miraculous as that of David.” To the right of the Middle Tower a road leads to Tower Wharf, from whence one of the most striking views in the whole of London is seen. Before the spectator stretches the famous “Pool,” that wide space of ever-shifting water on which rides all the shipping of the mighty river. It is a view which combines past and present; all the stir, the toil and traffic of the Thames lies before one, and for background rise the pinnacles, towers, and embattled walls of the grim old fortress, looking down on the ever-changing but time-defying stream.
Returning to the Middle Tower, and passing along the causeway which spans the moat, the Byward Tower is reached. The Byward Tower forms the gatehouse of the Outer Ward of the Tower, and dates back to the reign of Richard II. In form this tower is rectangular, it has three floors, and rejoices in a portcullis which, like that of the Middle Tower, could still be worked. In the time of Henry VIII. the Byward Tower was known by the name of the Warding Gate. Upon the right-hand side of the entrance there is a fine vaulted chamber, some 15 feet in size, which is supposed to have been used as an oratory during the Middle Ages. It is now occupied by the Warders of the Tower, and is called the Warders’ Parlour; with its loopholed windows and ancient stone fireplace, it is one of the best preserved interior portions of the fortress. There is a corresponding chamber on the opposite side of the gateway. Attached to the Byward Tower, on its south-eastern side, is a low tower intended to protect the postern bridge which here crosses the moat towards the river side. It has an old oak door, half hidden by a sentry box, over which is a vaulted roof dating from the reign of Richard II., and this, with the narrow tortuous passage, forms a picturesque corner of the Tower buildings.