Tower of London
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49 free Tower of London trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
The Tower of London has been a palace, a prison, a mint, a zoo, an armoury, a record office and the strongroom for the Crown Jewels, and at various points all of those at once. William the Conqueror founded it at the end of 1066 to overawe the Londoners; Henry III and Edward I built the concentric fortress that stands today; the Tudors turned it into the grim prison of legend, even though only seven people were executed inside its walls before the 20th century. This quiz walks the wards: the White Tower and its Kentish ragstone, the Bloody Tower and Traitors' Gate, the Beauchamp Tower's first bricks since the Romans, the Jewel House and Colonel Blood's near-theft, the polar bear that fished in the Thames, Ranulf Flambard's escape down a rope smuggled in a wine barrel, and the ravens that must never leave. It ends with the Blitz, the last execution in 1941 and the charity that runs the place today. Fifty sourced questions from easy to hard, each with an explanation that adds one more stone to the story.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What shielded the first Tower of London's eastern side?
Roman wall
The Roman wall already covered the east and the Thames the south, so the builders only had to dig a ditch along the other two sides.
Q 02Which king founded the Tower of London in 1066?
William the Conqueror
William the Conqueror, fresh from victory but nervous of rebellion, built it to overawe Londoners rather than shelter them: a fortress looming over the city he had just taken.
Q 03Which 888,246 objects filled the Tower of London's moat in 2014 as a war memorial?
Ceramic poppies
Ceramic poppies, one for each British military death of 1914-18; volunteers planted them by hand, and every one was then sold for £25, raising millions for service charities.
Q 04Which London borough contains the fortress?
Tower Hamlets
Tower Hamlets, not the City next door: the fortress stands right on the City's border, sited both to shield London and to keep its citizens under control.
Q 05Gundulf, the monk who oversaw the White Tower's building, held which office?
Bishop of Rochester
Bishop of Rochester; the king chose him for his skill with stone, and he went on to rebuild Rochester's cathedral and raise its first stone castle.
Q 06The Tower's first recorded prisoner escaped in 1101 by a rope hidden in what?
A wine container
A wine container: Ranulf Flambard got his guards drunk on it, then climbed out of a White Tower window, the first prisoner and the first escapee.
Q 07Which king gave the Tower of London its outer wall and the layout it has kept since 1285?
Edward I
Edward I built a second curtain wall on the line of his father's moat and dug a vast new moat beyond it; the basic shape survives today.
Q 08Which scientist ran the Royal Mint inside the Tower of London and hunted down counterfeiters?
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton was handed the wardenship in 1696 as a comfortable sinecure but took it seriously, personally pursuing coin clippers and forgers, and stayed at the Mint until his death.
Q 09Whose silvered armour in the White Tower, made around 1515, shows a slim, athletic king of 24?
Henry VIII
Henry VIII was a lean jouster at 24 when it was made; his 1540 armour nearby fits the overweight 49-year-old of legend.
Q 10St John's Chapel, inside the White Tower, is a rare complete survival of which style of architecture?
Norman
Norman: from 1100 new Knights of the Bath took a ritual bath, then kept an all-night vigil here before escorting the monarch to the coronation.
Q 11The Beauchamp Tower is famous for what, left on its walls by prisoners?
Carved graffiti
Carved graffiti: Thomas Abel, a queen's chaplain jailed for opposing her divorce, signed himself with a pun, the letter A cut into a picture of a bell.
Q 12Which nightly Tower of London ritual features the sentry's challenge 'Halt, who comes there'?
The Ceremony of the Keys
The Ceremony of the Keys locks the fortress every night; the story goes that the one time a wartime bomb blew the Chief Yeoman Warder off his feet, he dusted himself down and finished it slightly late.
Q 13According to tradition, the two young princes who vanished in 1483 were lodged in which part of the Tower of London?
Q 21Which torture device at the Tower of London was nicknamed 'the Duke of Exeter's daughter'?
The rack
The rack, said to have been brought in by a Constable of that name, left Anne Askew so broken in 1546 that she had to be carried to her own execution.
Q 22Which courtier's Tower rooms were altered so his family could live with him?
Walter Raleigh
Walter Raleigh spent 13 years inside in some comfort, joined by his wife, son and three servants, growing exotic plants and brewing herbal cordials in his own garden.
Q 23Which future queen was held prisoner in the Tower of London in 1554 by her own half-sister?
Elizabeth I
The Bloody Tower
The Bloody Tower, until then the Garden Tower, earned its gory name as rumours grew that the boys had been murdered inside it.
Q 14The water-gate beneath St Thomas's Tower, built as a royal river entrance, is better known by which name?
Traitors' Gate
Traitors' Gate began as the king's private entrance, his barge mooring beneath the arch; the name came later, as prisoners accused of treason were rowed in the same way.
Q 15The Tower of London's Yeoman Warders are better known by which nickname?
Beefeaters
Beefeaters: the name's origin is uncertain, but the favourite story is that the royal bodyguard could eat as much beef as they liked from the king's table.
Q 16Eleven spies were shot inside the Tower during which war?
First World War
The First World War: the first, Carl Hans Lody, asked the officer leading him out whether he would shake hands with a German spy, and was told, 'No. But I will shake hands with a brave man.'
Q 17Where were most prisoners condemned at the Tower of London executed?
Tower Hill
Tower Hill, just outside the walls, where beheadings were public spectacles; dying inside the fortress was a privilege of rank that spared the condemned the gawping crowds.
Q 18Which queen of Henry VIII was beheaded at the Tower in 1536?
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn was spared the axe: Henry had an expert swordsman brought from France; told he was very good, she joked, 'I have a little neck.'
Q 19Which teenage rival for Mary I's throne was beheaded at the Tower in 1554?
Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey reigned for just nine days, put on the throne by her father-in-law's coup; Mary spared her at first, and only a second rebellion months later sealed her fate.
Q 20Which Gunpowder Plotter was tortured at the Tower before confessing in November 1605?
Guy Fawkes
Guy Fawkes held out for days; James I's own warrant ordered 'the gentler tortures' first, then harsher ones, and the shaky signature on his confession shows the result.
Elizabeth I was suspected of plotting against Mary; with no hard evidence found she left the Tower after two months, but only for house arrest, and was crowned within five years.
Q 24Which baron escaped the Tower of London in 1323 and returned to overthrow Edward II with the king's own queen?
Roger Mortimer
Roger Mortimer's allies drugged the garrison's drink at a feast; he slipped through a hole in his cell wall, scaled the walls on rope ladders and reached a boat waiting on the Thames.
Q 25Who was the last monarch to ride in procession from the Tower to a coronation?
Charles II
Charles II made the ride in April 1661, but the Tower's royal lodgings were by then so run-down that he arrived by boat that morning rather than sleep there.
Q 26In the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, rebels who got inside the Tower of London beheaded which high official?
Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury Simon Sudbury was also Lord Chancellor, blamed by the rebels for their woes; they seized him at prayer in the chapel and cut off his head.
Q 27Which king, deposed in the Wars of the Roses, was imprisoned in the Tower and probably murdered there in 1471?
Henry VI
Henry VI officially died of 'melancholy', though his supporters said he was stabbed at prayer; Eton and King's College, which he founded, still lay lilies and roses at the Tower each May.
Q 28Where were bones thought to be the Princes in the Tower reburied?
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, by royal order, in a white marble urn designed by Christopher Wren; they lie there still, and nobody has ever proved whose bones they are.
Q 29Which uncle lodged Edward V in the Tower in 1483, then took the crown?
Richard III
Richard III, named Lord Protector, moved his nephew into the Tower 'for protection', had him declared illegitimate, and was crowned in his place within three months.
Q 30Who tried to steal the Crown Jewels from Martin Tower in 1671?
Colonel Thomas Blood
Colonel Thomas Blood was caught fleeing with the crown, yet talked his way into an audience with the king and left with a full pardon and Irish lands worth £500 a year.