Athens, for all its current woes, still has the Parthenon. Rome has the Colosseum, Paris the Louvre, Berlin the Reichstag, Beijing the forbidden city, Moscow the Kremlin and Washington the White House. But where in London is there a structure that sums up and encapsulates the sweep of English History from 1066 and all that, to the Second World War and beyond?
The answer is certainly obvious to the 2-3 million mainly overseas visitors who flock to the Tower of London every year, making it easily Britain’s top tourist attraction. What makes the Tower such a magnet is surely the sheer multiplicity of functions it has fulfilled over the centuries, and the fact that almost everyone who is anyone in English history — from William the Conqueror who had it built, to the Kray twins who were among its last detainees — has a link to this grim, grey fortress on the Thames.
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