THE JEWEL TOWER

CLIENT : ENGLISH HERITAGE

In a long and illustrious life the Jewel Tower has done service as the Privy Wardrobe of Kings from Edward III to Henry VIII, the records store of the House of Lords, and as the Office of Weights and Measures. It has survived the razing by fire of Westminster - twice.

This is a lot of history to pack into three small floors of display. As the building is a Scheduled Ancient Monument our client, English Heritage, required that we do so without detriment to the building fabric. A simple and elegant track system vastly improved the building’s lighting, using bespoke armatures where needed to keep vaulted ceilings clear. For exhibits, we developed a suite of solid oak furniture with enough presence to hold its own in this impressive stone building. Most importantly, this furniture allowed us to mount graphics and simple interactives as mostly freestanding, tied back to the walls where necessary using existing holes left by the previous exhibition.

Three strands of interpretation now tell the stories of ‘Kings’, ‘Clerks’ and ‘Counters’ using objects, replica treasures, interactives and an architectural model, while also letting the intriguing features of the building shine through.