Tower of London's White Tower

Hi everyone! This is my first blog posting ever, so I thought that I would start with what I want this blog to be about. I love museums and am an emerging museum professional myself. So, after reading many blogs that mention different exhibits from time to time, I thought that it would be fun to write a blog that focus on museum exhibits. New, traveling, permanent; as many of them as I can get to. 

Two months ago, I was in the UK for an archaeology conference, so my traveling companion Jenna (also a museum lover) and I decided to hit up as many museums as we could. These museums/exhibits will be the focus of my first few posts. 

So first up, the Tower of London's White Tower!

I remember walking through this exhibit about 6 years ago, on my first trip to the Tower, and being awed by the different exhibits. Well, 6 years and a renovation later,  I found myself enamored once more, but not for the same reasons. Walking through this time, I was throughly impressed with so many of the exhibit's components. Yes, the horses next to the heads of past kings is still creepy, but that short part is now competing with fun lighting design and amusing hands-on activities for all ages. 

First, you walk through the armor hall, which is full of huge swords and over-compensating cod-pieces. What else would you expect from Henry VIII?

Then you proceed through the Hall of Kings, which I have to admit still disturbs me so much that I scooted through it as quickly as possible. 

This picture may be one of my favorites that I took at the exhibit, because it shows the very impressive lighting design. When you are looking at the individual cases, you don't get the scope of the lighting. The panels actually transition between colors over time, going from blues and pinks to reds and yellow and every color in between. But somehow this really modern design works really beautifully with the Tudor and Stewart armor. 

After walking through some more open planned space, we arrived at the hands-on history section. Now, I normally will NOT touch any of the hands on activities after seeing what happens to them on a daily basis, but there was one that I just had to try. It was a mock long bow, where you stepped up, pulled back, and tried your luck at hitting a virtual target. Despite the my look in this picture (blame the jet lag, as it was our first full day in London), I LOVED this. I even managed to hit my target!

Then we went into the room that use to talk about the Gunpowder Plot. Now all that is left of that is this strange dragon on top of powder kegs and my slightly scared museum buddy. After this room, we headed back down the ground (you work your way from the bottom to the top in this exhibit), but made one quick pitstop before leaving the Tower of London. 

Jenna really wanted to see the exhibit on Torture, so we stood in line in a slight drizzle to see what it was all about. When we got inside, however, we realized that it was just a small, one room exhibit with models of a few torture devices, including the Rack, the Manacles, and the one showed above, called the Scavenger's Daughter. It was a neat little exhibit, but there was a major problem with the flow of people through the exhibit, so we didn't stay too long. 

All in all it was a great exhibit within the larger Tower of London experience. And since Jenna and I both made it out alive (despite this guy's best efforts), I think we can call it a success.