What we do
Interactive timeline - History of the RA
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40 AD
Before the Romans
The pre-Roman site of the Tower of London was probably occupied by an Iron Age farm.
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400 AD
Twilight of the Roman City
Londinium was remodelled and strengthened in response to the threat of Saxon invasion.
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1080 AD
The Conqueror's Castle
Work began on the construction of William the Conqueror's mighty White Tower.
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1200 AD
The Tower Enlarged
A major expansion of the Tower's defences during the reigns of Richard I and King John.
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1240 AD
The Classic Castle
Henry III extended the defences of the Tower and refurbished and enlarged the royal lodgings.
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1300 AD
Apogee of the Medieval Castle
Tower defences extended, to those seen today, by England's greatest warrior king, Edward I.
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1547 AD
The Tudor Power House
During Henry VIII's reign the Offices of Ordnance, Armoury, Mint and Records occupy the Tower.
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1700 AD
Showplace of the Nation
After the Restoration in 1660 armouries displays are established to impress the visiting public.
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1841 AD
The Great Conflagration
The Grand Storehouse including two armouries displays is destroyed by fire on 31 Oct 1841.
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1890 AD
Remedievalisation of the Castle
50 years of restoration transformed the appearance of the Tower following the fire of 1841.
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1940 AD
The Castle at War
WWII aerial bombing threatens the Tower. The Main Guard is destroyed on the 29 Dec 1940.
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2000 AD
The Tower Today
The Tower of London attracts over 2 million visitors per year as a World Heritage Site.
The Royal Armouries is home to the United Kingdom’s national collection of arms and armour, including artillery. As a museum we have a duty of care for these objects, to keep them, study them and increase our knowledge of them, so that this can be passed to future generations along with the objects themselves.
This knowledge can be shared with others who also collect arms and armour, we are actively involved with and support a number of groups committed to the study of the subject and its practical applications. As such we offer an enquiry service to the public and the commercial world alike and have often acted as consultants on a number of film and television projects.
However, we are more than just a museum with objects in display cases, we carry out and publish research on the topic of arms and armour, carry out research on behalf of other museums. Act as specialists in the field, and we even loan out objects to other institutions.
This may sound very dull, but we also use our knowledge and collection in a fun way. We put on events for the public, jousting, military displays, and exhibitions.
This is not the only way in which we use our knowledge and collection, we do very important work in the community, working with Youth Offending Teams, on knife and gun crime prevention. As one of the largest collections of guns and knives in the world we are uniquely placed to offer a different insight into how and why people use weapons.
