Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower Hamlets
— — the small chapel where the famous and the forgotten lie together.
Not only on a wall.
“A modest Tudor chapel on the inner ward of the Tower of London, rebuilt under Henry VIII in 1519 and 1520. From the outside it is almost domestic, pale Kentish ragstone and a square west tower, dwarfed by the White Tower across the green. Inside, the floor holds the remains of three queens of England and a small constellation of statesmen and saints. Services still run on Sunday mornings for the resident community of the Tower, and visitors are admitted by warder tour during the day. It is not a tourist church. It is a parish that happens to be inside a fortress.
Church of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower Hamlets, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula stands on the inner ward of the Tower of London, in the modern London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The dedication — Peter in Chains — is shared with the basilica in Rome and points back to the apostle's imprisonment in the Acts of the Apostles. The present building was rebuilt under Henry VIII between 1519 and 1520 after fire damage, replacing an earlier medieval chapel on the same footprint. It is a royal peculiar, meaning it falls under the direct jurisdiction of the Crown rather than a diocesan bishop.
The chapel is built of pale Kentish ragstone with a simple square west tower and a flat lead roof, a modest profile beside the eleventh-century White Tower across Tower Green. The interior is single-aisled, with a Tudor wagon-vaulted ceiling restored under Queen Victoria in the 1870s. The floor, lifted during the Victorian restoration, was found to contain the unmarked remains of three queens — Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, and Lady Jane Grey — alongside Sir Thomas More, John Fisher, and Thomas Cromwell. They were reburied beneath new marble paving in 1876 and 1877.
The chapel is part of the Tower of London site and is reached on a Yeoman Warder tour, included with admission to the Tower. Individual entry outside the tour is generally not permitted during daytime visiting hours, since the chapel remains an active place of worship for the resident community — the Constable's household, the Yeoman Warders and their families. Sunday morning services are open to the public on request through the Tower chaplaincy. The nearest Underground stations are Tower Hill and London Bridge, both within a short walk.