Jewel House
 News report on the 1967 Jewel House exhibition (British Pathé) |
Coordinates: 51°30′29″N 0°4′34″W / 51.50806°N 0.07611°W
The Jewel House is a vault housing the British Crown Jewels in the Waterloo Block (formerly a barracks) at the Tower of London. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 and refurbished in 2012. Regalia have been kept in various parts of the Tower since the 14th century after a series of successful and attempted thefts at Westminster Abbey.
A Keeper of the Crown Jewels was appointed in 1207. Over the subsequent centuries his title varied, from Keeper of the King's Jewels, Master of the Jewel House, Master and Treasurer of the King's Jewels and Plate, or Keeper of the Jewel House. He was also Treasurer of the Chamber, a division of the Royal Household of the monarch. In this position he was also called Keeper of the Court Wardrobe, Keeper of the Privy Wardrobe, or Receiver of the Chamber. In this capacity, he represented the Lord Treasurer's interests in the regalia, and the wardrobe and privy wardrobe. Because of this, the Receiver of the Chamber exercised delegated authority over the Crown Jewels, especially those kept at the Tower of London (these two positions were separated in 1485).
Although a treasury had been located in the Tower of London from the earliest times (as in the sub-crypt of St John's Chapel in the White Tower), from 1255 there was a separate Jewel House for state crowns and regalia, though not older crowns and regalia, in the grounds of Westminster Abbey. This Jewel House stood by the now-demolished Wardrobe Tower.
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