1 Natsume Soseki, ‘Rondonto’, Yokyushu (1906). Translated into English in Flanagan, Damian, The Tower of London: Tales of Victorian London (London, 2004), p. 92Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, General Higginson, Sir George, A Plea for the Tower of London (London, 1893)Google Scholar; Major General Younghusband, Sir George, A Short History of The Tower of London (London, 1926)Google Scholar.

3 For the development of the building conservation movement see Preserving the Past: The Rise of Heritage in Modern Britain , ed. Hunter, Michael (London, 1996)Google Scholar, passim; Jokilehto, Jukka, A History of Architectural Conservation (Oxford, 1999), pp. 156–63Google Scholar and 174–87.

4 Impey, Edward and Parnell, Geoffrey, The Tower of London (London and New York, 2000), p. 121Google Scholar. While acknowledging that the Office of Works made further alterations on portions of the Tower until the mid-twentieth century, Impey and Parnell consider the ‘last phase of the restoration process’ to have ended in 1888.

5 Plantagenet Somerset Fry, Tower of London: Cauldron of Britain's Past (London, 1990), pp. 178–79Google Scholar.

6 Wilson, Derek, The Tower of London: A Thousand Years (London, 1998), pp. 233–38Google Scholar.

7 For more on the Tower in the popular imagination, see Samuel, Raphael, Theatres of Memory, vol. 2: Island Stories: Unravelling Britain (London and New York, 1998), pp. 108–18Google Scholar.

8 Parnell, Geoffrey, The Tower of London (London, 1993), pp. 98–108 Google Scholar and 103; Parnell, The Tower of London: Past and Present (Stroud, Gloucestershire, 1998), passim.

9 Geoffrey Parnell, ‘1888: The Victorian Mutilation of the Tower of London Ends’, Ripperologist, November 2011, pp. 1–10.

10 Glendinning, Miles, The Conservation Movement: A History of Architectural Preservation (Oxford and New York, 2013), p. 216Google Scholar.

11 Allibone, Jill, Anthony Salvin: Pioneer of Gothic Revival Architecture (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 139–43Google Scholar.

12 Port, M.H., Imperial London: Civil Government Building in London, 1850–1915 (New Haven, 1995)Google Scholar.

13 Thurley, Simon, Men from the Ministry: How Britain Saved its Heritage (New Haven, 2013), pp. 28–29 Google Scholar, 32–33 and 50–51.

14 London, The National Archives [hereafter referred to as ‘TNA’], WORK 22/9/6, Office of Works file, ‘Appointments: Sir John Taylor, Architect.’

15 Despite Baines's reputation as a social housing pioneer and influence in the conservation of vernacular buildings, his career remains widely unrecognised.

16 For a summary of the Tower's institutional history see The Tower of London: Its Buildings and Institutions , ed. Charlton, J. (London, 1978)Google Scholar.

17 H.W. Brewer, ‘The Tower of London: Some Notes: Historical and Pictorial’, The Pall Mall Magazine (May 1902), pp. 46–53 (p. 47).

18 Parnell, The Tower of London, p. 92; Raphael Samuel, Island Stories, p. 107.

19 FitzGerald-De Ros, William Lennox Lascelles, Memorials of the Tower of London (London, 1886), p .4Google Scholar.

20 Ibid, p. 15.

21 Impey and Parnell, The Tower of London, p. 121.

22 Thurley, Men from the Ministry, p. 33.

23 Disagreements regarding the preservation of historic buildings lasted for decades. In 1913 the RIBA held a dinner at which ‘Charles Peers [Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments] spent the evening in debate with Thackeray Turner, Secretary of the SPAB. They had begun by holding separate views and finished it by “holding them more strongly still”.’ Thurley, Men from the Ministry, p. 137.

24 Chris Miele, ‘The First Conservation Militants: William Morris and the SPAB’ in Preserving the Past, ed. Hunter, pp. 17–37 (p. 20).

25 Mitford, A.B., ‘The Tower of London’, The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review (June 1882), pp. 902–14 (p. 903)Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., p. 913.

27 For annual visitor figures, see Thurley, Men from the Ministry, p. 261.

28 The Tower of London, ed. Charlton, pp. 68 and 74–75.

29 TNA, WORK 14/174, Office of Works file ‘Restoration Works and Maintenance’: ‘There are two principles to which the Office of Works regulate their work at the Tower. When any new work or important “reconstruction” is proposed, it is first submitted (verbally) to the First Commissioner, and with his sanction is then […] sent on, on behalf of the Constable to the Resident Officer. But the case is different when it in question of keeping in repair, without alteration, the existing structures of the Tower, which come under the First Commissioner, as connected with the palatial character of the Tower. The practice, as regards these repairs, is for an officer from the Office of Works, to make inspections from time to time and report on the repair which appears necessary, to prevent dilapidation; without any reference or recognition given to the Resident Officer of the Constable.’

30 TNA, WORK 14/185, Office of Works file, letter from the Resident Governor to the Office of Works.

31 Ibid., Office of Works internal memorandum.

32 TNA, WO/32/13240, War Office file, letter from the Treasury to the Office of Works.

33 TNA, WORK 94/50/3. As part of the new arrangement the Office of Works agreed to pay the salaries of staff such as labourers and lavatory attendants; in return they would receive revenue raised from the public, which stood at approximately £2500 per annum. The Warders and Curator of the Armouries remained in the employ of the War Office.

34 TNA, WORKS 14/2/4.

35 In early 1897 Thackeray Turner of the SPAB gave a lecture to the Society of Architects on the subject of ‘Restoration’. The lecture provoked impassioned arguments, which reverberated in the architectural press, both for and against the restoration to which Turner was so opposed. See The Building News 72, 5 February 1897.

36 TNA, WORK 14/3/2, letter of 7 June 1899.

37 Ibid., letter of 13 June 1899.

38 Ibid., letter from J.B. Westcott, 21 July 1899.

39 For example, A.C. Pugin's Specimens and Examples of Gothic Architecture was reprinted in 1895, signalling renewed demand for such publications.

40 The first authorised guidebook to the Tower was written by J. Loftie. Initially published in 1886 it was reprinted numerous times, with a revised edition issued in 1911. Natsume Soseki's account of his visit included his London landlord's observation that ‘everybody reads the guidebook before setting off’; see Natsume Soseki, The Tower of London, p. 113.

41 A group of undated drawings in the collection of the RIBA shows Salvin's work on the Bloody Tower. Reference to this work can also be found in TNA, WORK 14/3/2.

42 Parnell, The Tower of London, p. 111.

43 The Builder, January 1890.

44 These drawings are in the Historic Royal Palaces Architectural Drawings collection: TOL/1693 and TOL/1691.

45 I am indebted in this section to discussions at the SAHGB Annual Symposium, ‘The Official Architect; missing chapters in the history of the profession’ (May 2016).

46 TNA, WORK 22/38, Office of Works file ‘Case of Mr C. Bennett’.

47 I refer to the draughtsman as ‘he’ throughout as I have found no suggestion that women were employed by the Office of Works as draughtsmen at this time.

48 TNA, WORK 22/8/7, Office of Works file ‘Architects and Surveyors Divisions: miscellaneous papers relating to staffing’; TNA, WORK 22/12/3, Office of Works file ‘Architectural Draughtsmen and Technical Assistants: creation of classes 1 and 2’.

49 TNA, WORK 22/5/2, Office of Works file.

50 The Builder, 16 February 1912.

51 The Builder, 5 January 1912.

52 The Builder, 12 January 1912.

53 The Builder, 24 May 1912.

54 This point was raised in discussion at the SAHGB's recent symposium, noted above.

55 See Stamp, Gavin, The Great Perspectivists (New York, 1982)Google Scholar, especially p. 16.

56 Roisin Inglesby, ‘Architecture in the Builder's Yard’, Victorian, 49, July 2015.

57 The Office of Works’ competition for draughtsmen in 1881 stipulated that candidates must possess the ability to draw and design in both ‘the Classic and Gothic styles’: TNA, WORK 22/5/2.

58 For the role of architectural drawings at the Royal Academy, see Bingham, Neil, Masterworks: Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts (London, 2011)Google Scholar.

59 Records indicate that while independent architects employed by government departments occasionally exhibited at the Royal Academy, no draughtsmen working directly for the Office of Works exhibited drawings of official projects in the years 1870 to 1914. I have found no reports in the architectural press of drawings of the Tower being displayed anywhere during this period.

60 Drawings also served as links at the other end of the chain of command, communicating instructions from the architect via the site foreman to the craftsman who executed the work. Even fewer of these drawings – characterised by large construction detail and less engaging (though no less precise) draughtsmanship – survive, an indication of their use on site and their perceived lack of importance to later archivists.

61 Baines had himself studies under C.R. Ashbee and was thus directly linked to the Arts and Crafts movement.

62 For a detailed description of the history and versions of Blackletter, see, Blackletter: Type and National Identity , eds Bain, Peter and Shaw, Paul (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.

63 Based on a survey of drawings relating to each site at the TNA.

64 A close study of the architectural drawings relating to Hampton Court Palace is outside the scope of this article, but further comparison with those of the Tower would be fruitful. The restoration of Hampton Court Palace is covered in Thurley, Men from the Ministry, pp. 34–35.

65 For the use of particular media, including Whatman paper, in architectural drawings, see Bingham, Masterworks, p. 26.

66 For the early history of the SPAB, see Miele, ‘The First Conservation Militants’ in Preserving the Past, ed. Hunter, pp. 17–37.

67 Thurley, Men from the Ministry, p. 63.

68 Ibid., pp. 36–47.

69 Ibid., p. 83.

70 Port, Imperial London, p. 76.

71 The Tower appears to have been low on the list of official priorities. According to the diaries of First Commissioner Aretas Akers Douglas, which meticulously record his personal and official appointments, he visited the Tower only once between 1895 and 1901. This was in contrast with numerous site visits with Taylor to the South Kensington Museum, and inspection of works at Charing Cross and London Bridge. See Kent County Council Archives, U564 F23–28, Diaries of Viscount Chilston.

72 One, Tanner, in England, with another responsible for Scotland.

73 TNA, WORK 22/8/7.

74 TNA, WORK 14/3001.

75 TNA, WORK 14/174

76 Higginson, A Plea for the Tower of London, p. 6. Higginson's use of the word ‘plea’ is telling in the context of competing interpretations of the Tower – one increasingly academic and based on architectural and historical evidence, the other seeking to appeal to visitors’ romanticised expectations.

77 Ibid., p. 17.

78 TNA, WORK 14/185.

79 For example, General Milman made repeated requests between 1889 and 1894 that unsightly building rubble be removed from the Wakefield and Lanthorn Towers, and that public access to the White Tower be improved; LNA, WO 94/50. For the nineteenth-century history of the yeoman warders see Martin, Janette, ‘Reinventing the Tower Beefeater in the Nineteenth Century’, History, 2013, pp. 730–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 A.W. Clapham, ‘The Tower of London and its Development’, in Some Famous Buildings and Their Story (London, 1912), p. 45.

81 For a succinct summary of the nineteenth century work at Westminster Abbey, see Jenkyns, Richard, Westminster Abbey: a Thousand Years of National Pageantry (London, 2011), pp. 106–11Google Scholar.

82 A letter to The Building News in April 1899 is one of many expressing dismay at John Thomas Micklethwaite's treatment of Westmnster Abbey, which the author deemed to have contradicted the teachings of the SPAB and Micklethwaite's own professed stance on the issue; see The Building News, April 21, 1899. The debate continued and a summary of the successive, and arguably inconsistent, work done on the abbey is provided by another correspondent in 1907: The Building News, November 8, 1907.

83 Thurley, Men from the Ministry, p. 133.

84 Parnell, The Tower of London, p. 113.

85 Writing a history of the Tower in 1891, the artist C.R.B. Barrett condemned a modern window installed in the Beauchamp Tower, stating that ‘where the architectural authority was derived for that at present existing needs explanation’; see C.R.B. Barrett, ‘The Tower and its Memories’, The Ludgate Monthly, November 1891, pp. 27–35 (p. 31).

86 According to De Ros, from the 1850s all proposed works had to be ‘officially submitted for her Majesty's approval, a regulation which is now strictly attended to’; see De Ros, Memorials, p. 20. While there is no clear evidence that these designs were shown to Queen Victoria, her approval may have been another factor in the continuation of the scheme endorsed by Albert.

87 The decision to continue work according to Salvin's model is especially interesting given the alternative methods employed by the Ministry of Woods. Architects working on the repair of Tintern Abbey were instructed that nothing be done ‘except what is absolutely necessary to maintain the walls in their present condition …’; see Robinson, David M., ‘The Making of a Monument: the Office of Woods and its Successors at Tintern Abbey’, Monmouthshire Antiquary, 13, 1997, pp. 43–56 Google Scholar (p. 43).