Tower of London Police Cabin

[starcross]

Taken 1968. Source

I believe this is the Police Cabin that is noted on the Survey.
I could be completely wrong, there is a Police Box just around the corner after all.

[hb88banzai]

No, I'm pretty sure this is not the CoL "Police Cabin".

Looks to be a pretty ordinary Guard Box as used elsewhere on the grounds. Also, this one is in the drained moat on the west side of the Tower, with the photo being taken from close to where the Met Box was located. According the the 1939 Survey's placement of the marker for CoL No. 1, the "Cabin" would have been inside the first wall near the southeast corner of the Tower grounds. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a photo of anything I would be confident in calling a "Police Cabin" in that area.

Note that since the 1939 Survey makes no special notation about CoL No. 16 at Blackfriar's Bridge, which we now know was a Box/Kiosk at the time, that this "Police Cabin" was likely something else entirely. By the nomenclature it was possibly even larger than a normal Box or Kiosk, perhaps along the lines of the big Section Boxes used in one or more of the industrial cities in the north.

[starcross]

What do you make of this structure?
Could this be the police Cabin from the Survey?

Whatever this was, its long since been removed.

Source: Alamy

[domvar]

Looks military to me:-

"During the Second World War, the Tower was once again used to hold prisoners of war. One such person was Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, albeit just for four days in 1941. He was the last state prisoner to be held at the castle.[124] The last person to be executed at the Tower was German spy Josef Jakobs who was shot on 15 August 1941.[125] The executions for espionage during the wars took place in a prefabricated miniature rifle range which stood in the outer ward and was demolished in 1969.[126] The Second World War also saw the last use of the Tower as a fortification. In the event of a German invasion, the Tower, together with the Royal Mint and nearby warehouses, was to have formed one of three "keeps" or complexes of defended buildings which formed the last-ditch defences of the capital."

[hb88banzai]

A 1947 aerial view of the Tower has this feature tagged as "WWII Type 26 Pillbox." These are user applied tags, so not infallible, but seems about right. The angled orientation just screams military purpose - maximum field of fire.

I had wondered about this and the other small buildings in the area some time ago, but discounted them as they were outside the walls and next to the Thames, while the Survey shows the "Police Cabin" pretty positively a bit further north and possibly inside at least the outer walls (certainly north of the line of the southern wall). Time to do an overlay, I think, to try to pinpoint things a bit.

The "Miniature Rifle Range" was on the east, up in the northern part of the area between the inner and outer walls, hugging up against the inner wall. It's actually marked on the OS maps and is a pretty large structure.

[hb88banzai]

An extract from the 1952 (1:1250 Scale) OS Map showing the Tower and grounds --



I've prepared a section of this OS map showing the relevant corner of the Tower with an overlay of where the 1939 City of London Survey of Kiosks and Posts places this "Police Cabin." There are some scale and orientation issues near the edges of that Survey map (particularly with the south end of the Bridges), and CoL 1 was on the right edge so shows some distortions, but below shows the range of positions depending on how one deals with these --



The green circle of each position is the extent covered by the number marker for CoL 01 on the Survey Map, with the red dot being the centre, where more often than not I've found the actual 1939 locations for the surveyed Posts and Boxes to be. The upper left set are those when biasing the overlay to the corner of the Tower grounds and the Tower Bridge Approach, while the lower right set are those when biasing the overlay for the average of the more accurately drawn western and northern parts of the Tower and all the surrounding buildings and streets. The darker green is the area common to both (vesica piscis), a useful averaging of the margin of error here.

The results are not perfect, but fairly close nonetheless. If the positioning is as with most of the rest on the Survey, the most likely area is within a smaller circle barely encompassing the two red "centre" dots. So it would appear that the CoL "Police Cabin", whatever it was, is marked as having been in the vicinity of the Salt Tower (upper right red marker is more or less centred on same), with the highest probability that it was between the inner and outer walls.

The aerial photos don't seem to show anything at that location, but it's very hard to get a good angle because of the proximity of the walls and buildings. It should also be noted that there are open arches within both walls so it's always possible it was in one of these, essentially nestled under/within the wall.

I've been unable to find any ground photos in the appropriate time periods, but these show the area in question:

East side of the Salt Tower looking north between the wall curtains - probably around 1900-1910 --




South side of the Salt Tower looking east between the wall curtains - c1910 --




A relatively current view of the area at the base of the Salt Tower within the curtain of the inner wall --




Perhaps someone could take a field trip to the the Tower at some point and ask some pertinent questions of the Warders or staff?

[starcross]

So its inside the Tower Wall?
I'm not sure that make sense, that box was supposed to be used to let the Beat Officer rest I imagine. He wouldn't be patrolling inside the tower grounds. More likely it was to allow him to walk along the Riverside where the public was. People used to go swimming in front of the Tower, so I would think that would be a prime First Aid situation.

I was watching more British Pathe Films and one happened to get a good view along the outside of that east wall by the Tower Bridge Approach.
See what you make of this.

Source: British Pathe



To me it sort of looks like the shell of a CoL Police Box painted white with a black door.

[hb88banzai]

Interesting...

Anything is possible - as I said, things got a bit wonky at the edges of the map. Looks like they suddenly ran out of room and started squeezing to get everything in, especially with the southern half of the bridges and the left and right edges.

As you can see in this crop of your original scan of the 1939 Survey, the portion of the Tower grounds that object in the film was on is actually off the page --



If essentially a regular CoL Box, it still troubles me that they would call CoL 01 a "Police Cabin" while not noting the same for the five other known CoL Boxes on the map.

[hb88banzai]

I've gone back and looked at all the available aerial photos that show that area next to Tower Bridge, mostly from the late 1940s to 1950s, and none of them seem to show anything at all where that Box shaped object is in the 1971 clip. The pre-war ones also don't show the pillbox, as one would expect.

[Rassilons Rod]

I was there recently and took this... Looks like a whole section of stones has also been removed (from behind where the box was) since the photo was taken.

EDIT: I think I found the right place...

[domvar]

Don't think you have unless the bridge is new . Your image is of the moat wall the original is the next wall in (the curtain wall).

[Rassilons Rod]

It's definitely the area highlighted in green here.

The "Bridge" is this one here, in the background - I think it's the way in.

[hb88banzai]

Sorry, your colour photo is of the other (west) side of the Tower looking towards the main entrance. The Met Box would have been mid-way down and out of frame on the right (as well as behind a fence). That picture is also of the Ditch/Moat area outside the outer walls rather than between the inner and outer walls. Beautiful photo, though.

The B&W image with the Guard Post in the distance (the one that started this Topic) is of the same area, but closer to the entrance bridge.

[Rassilons Rod]

Ah... so in the B&W shot, the outer wall must be just out of frame then :/

[hb88banzai]

Exactly, or mostly.

Take a look at this photo again - look all the way on the right and you can see a curb line, and above that can just make out parts of the outer wall --



And this is all a much narrower confine than the broad swathe of the Ditch/Moat in the colour pic.