Tower of London
In 1816, a sentry at the Jewel House reportedly bayoneted a bear-shaped apparition and died of shock days later. In October 1817, Edmund Swifte, Keeper of the Crown Jewels, said he threw a chair through a glowing, cylinder-shaped apparition in the same building.
Field Guide Entry
Built by William the Conqueror starting in 1078, the Tower of London spent centuries as a royal fortress, armory, and prison, and hosted the executions of figures including Anne Boleyn (1536) and Lady Jane Grey (1554). Its reputation for haunting dates at least to 1816, when a sentry guarding the Jewel House reportedly bayoneted an apparition shaped like a bear near the Martin Tower and died of shock days later, one of the earliest specifically dated incidents in a long oral tradition of strange sightings on the grounds.
In October 1817, Edmund Swifte, Keeper of the Crown Jewels, described a glowing, glass-cylinder-shaped apparition in the Jewel House that he said reached toward his wife before he threw a chair through it. In 1864, a rifleman on guard reportedly bayoneted a white figure that vanished outright; he was court-martialed for dereliction of duty, but said two fellow witnesses near the Bloody Tower had seen it too. Anne Boleyn's ghost is the Tower's most cited haunting, said to walk the execution site and lead a headless procession through the chapel; Lady Jane Grey's ghost is reported on the Battlements on the anniversary of her execution, with a 1957 sighting by two Guardsmen among the more recent claims.
None of these accounts is treated as documented fact by mainstream historians. The Tower's modern histories address its grim reputation as a product of Tudor-era propaganda and Victorian romanticism rather than the supernatural. Centuries of oral retelling, the building's genuinely violent history, and the natural unease of a centuries-old stone fortress are the most commonly cited explanations for why sightings have persisted almost unbroken for two centuries.
Visiting Information
Open daily except around Christmas. Book online in advance to avoid lines for the Crown Jewels and the Yeoman Warder tours.
Field Gallery
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Community Notes
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