Tower of London (parish)

Church of St Peter ad Vincula
Side of St. Peter chapel, viewed from near the place of execution on Tower Green
Church of St Peter ad Vincula The church within the City of London
51°30′31″N 0°4′37″W / 51.50861°N 0.07694°W / 51.50861; -0.07694Coordinates: 51°30′31″N 0°4′37″W / 51.50861°N 0.07694°W / 51.50861; -0.07694
Location	Tower Hamlets, London
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
History
Dedication	Saint Peter
Architecture
Status	Active
Years built	1519–20
Administration
Diocese	Royal Peculiar
Clergy
Chaplain(s)	The Revd Canon Roger Hall

The Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula ("St. Peter in chains") is the parish church of the Tower of London. It is situated within the Tower's Inner Ward and dates from 1520. It is a Royal Peculiar. The name refers to St. Peter's imprisonment under Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem. The Chapel is probably best known as the burial place of some of the most famous prisoners executed at the Tower, including Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, Thomas Cromwell, Thomas More and John Fisher.

At the west end is a short tower, surmounted by a lantern bell-cote, and inside the church is a nave and shorter north aisle, lit by windows with cusped lights but no tracery, a typical Tudor design.

The church is a Chapel Royal, and the priest responsible for it is the chaplain of the Tower, a canon and member of the Ecclesiastical Household. The canonry was abolished in 1685 but reinstated in 2012.

The existing building was rebuilt for Henry VIII by Sir Richard Cholmondeley in 1519–20, but a chapel stood in its position since before the Norman conquest.

St Peter ad Vincula was the church of the extra-parochial area of Tower Within, part of the Liberties of the Tower of London. On 16 December 1729 the church was added to the Bills of mortality, a record of burials in London, but was excluded in 1730 because of a successful claim by the inhabitants of it being extra-parochial and outside of the normal parish system. Extra-parochial places were eliminated in the 19th century, and in 1858 the area became a civil parish, following the Extra-Parochial Places Act 1857. The Tower of London liberty was dissolved in 1894, and the parish was absorbed by St Botolph without Aldgate in 1901.