-The Tower of London.

It's 2022, and this will be one of the most extraordinary times in its thousand-year history.

-Torture?

Go down the stairs, to the left.

-It's already seen more famous events than anywhere else in Britain... -Anne Boleyn got her head cut off.

-Guy Fawkes.

-...and 42 monarchs... -William the Conqueror.

-King Henry VIII.

-Bloody Mary.

-...come and go.

Now with exclusive access, we meet the men and women keeping the Tower running during an incredible 12 months... -Somebody asked if the Tower of London was a new build.

No, it's a thousand years old.

-...as the Tower marks its first ever Platinum Jubilee... -We will never see a Platinum Jubilee again in our lifetime.

-One of the saddest moments in its history.

-The passing of Queen Elizabeth II.

-...and the proclamation of a new king.

-God preserve King Charles III.

-In this episode, the Tower's plan to plant millions of seeds in the moat for the Platinum Jubilee runs into big trouble.

-I think it's worrying.

It's just seeing flocks of pigeons descending onto here and having a feast.

-We uncover a terrifying plot to murder Elizabeth I.

-There was nobody Elizabeth could trust, not even members of her own family.

-And Yeoman Sergeant Clive is on the hunt for buried treasure at the Tower.

-The gold hasn't been discovered.

Could still be out there.

-Never know.

-I could find it.

-Welcome to the secret world of the Tower of London.

♪♪ It's midday at the Tower, and the Yeoman Warders are entertaining hundreds of visitors with their bloody stories of the fortress's history.

-The axe comes crashing down, hopefully severing the head from the body in one fatal blow.

-Theirs is one of the most exclusive jobs in the world.

There have been more Nobel Prize winners than there have been Yeoman Warders.

-At times, folks, it took up to seven or eight attempts.

That's going to ruin your day, isn't it?

-To land the role, you not only need a spotless military record, but also a dramatic flair for storytelling.

-Picking up that still-bleeding severed head by the hair.

With the odd obvious exception, of course.

-Yeoman Warder Lawrence Watts was previously a sergeant major in the Royal Corps of Signals on active duty in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

He joined the yeoman body in 2016.

He can still remember the moment he decided to apply for the job.

-It's 2015.

I've just come in for a visit and I decided to attend one of the Yeoman Warder tours.

I was completely gobsmacked at the level of information and the enthusiasm.

Inside that fabulous building, keep your eyes peeled for the Cullinan Diamond.

It's weighing in at 530.2 carats.

This stone is officially described as a bit of all right... [ Laughter ] ...by me.

-And at the end of the tour, we had a chat and he kind of explained what the criteria was for becoming a Yeoman Warder and said they're actually hiring at the moment.

And I remember thinking at the time, "This is kind of funny because I meet that criteria."

And so by the time I'd got home, I'd already decided that was it.

Come right down this way, all the way around here, folks.

-Now a tower veteran, as well as leading his own tours... -I am talking about gravity and Sir Isaac Newton.

He lived there when he was master of the mint.

Without him, you'd all be floating around up there in the sky somewhere.

-...Lawrence also mentors new recruits.

-I can use my experience and knowledge that I've gained over the last seven years to help support the next generation of Yeoman Warders coming through.

Most importantly, have a fantastic day.

Thank you very much.

-Tam Reilly is an RAF veteran and the 414th person to become a Yeoman Warder.

-That big house there with the guard, that's called the Queen's House, and the Constable of the Tower of London, he lives there with his family.

He even gets his milk delivered for him.

-The Queen doesn't live there.

-Well, thank you.

-You're welcome ladies, you're welcome.

-Tam has been mentored by Lawrence for the past six months.

-You all right?

-He's now qualified to conduct his own tours at the tower.

-Torture?

So down these stairs here, you go straight across the corner, it's in -- it's in the round tower.

Just go there.

Yeah.

Don't get any ideas, now.

-But Tam still has one more hurdle to navigate to become a fully fledged Yeoman Warder.

He needs to learn how to put on his state dress uniform known as Reds.

-So chuffed to get this, because it's such an iconic uniform.

Really is what makes a Yeoman Warder a Yeoman Warder.

-The Reds have a bit of a reputation.

They're notoriously tricky to get into.

-Good morning.

-Morning, Lawrence.

-Come on in.

Let's get you sorted.

-Lovely.

Thank you.

Hang the sword up here.

-Yeah.

-Tam is visiting Lawrence at his home in the Tower's casemates, and he's hoping to get some help on the correct way to dress, especially the Tudor ruff.

-I've been shown it once, but I'm not really 100% sure what way it goes on properly.

-So chin up and let's have a look and see how it goes on there.

Come round the back and if you just pop your finger under the front first and just hold that up so we can get the right angle.

There are two sets of draw cords that run all the way around these ruffles and actually gives us the angle that we can see around here.

So it should be almost looking like a bowl.

If one of those isn't tightened up properly, then it'll end up looking like a bit of a flat dinner plate, which is quite embarrassing.

Just make sure it doesn't ruin your ruff as we go around the back.

-Yeah.

-The tricky bit are the buttons.

Not really a one-person job, this.

It does tend to start to get uncomfortable.

The tunic itself weighs about 7 1/2 kilos, which you're going to be wearing for a couple of hours at a time so it can start taking its toll, which is why it's so important to make sure that it's fitted perfectly for you.

-Finally, the ceremonial sword.

-This is most awkward, looking down here once you've got your ruff on.

-Yeah, it is.

You end up doing quite a lot of stuff by feel.

One of the best things about these swords, if you look nice and closely on there, you'll see that this is actually produced by Wilkinson Sword.

So for a lot of people, I think that's the first time they realize why they're called Wilkinson Sword, because they are professional sword makers who happen to also make men's razors.

-Honestly, I didn't know that.

I'm not going to shave with this, though.

-Very few people in history have gotten to wore this uniform.

-To me, this is the epitome of a Yeoman Warder.

This is what it's all about.

To be wearing this properly for the first time really is quite humbling in a way, and a little bit emotional.

♪♪ Lovely.

-2022 is the year of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, and in honor of her 70 years on the throne, the Tower is planning its most ambitious celebration ever -- the transformation of its ancient moat into a vast, flower-filled meadow.

But before that can happen, services like electricity and water must be buried in trenches, so around 1000 square meters of moat soil must be dug up.

[ Metal detector beeping ] -It sounds like quite a nice signal.

That's a good one.

-But this is not just any soil.

The moat was created in the 1200s as part of the tower's defenses.

But as time went on, it became a dumping ground for all the fortress's rubbish.

In 1845 it was drained and has since been used for everything from training soldiers to grazing cattle to growing veg in World War II.

And with all that history beneath the surface, any excavated soil must be carefully inspected for buried artifacts.

The team have no idea what they may find, and today's diggers uncovered something special from Tudor times.

-What we found today is a lot of the bones from the animals that they were eating.

So, for instance, this is a tusk of a boar.

You can just imagine them kind of turning a boar on a spit in the medieval castle.

Another thing that we find down here is oyster shells.

Oysters, in medieval times, they were very inexpensive.

So everybody, you and I would be eating oysters, and they would just chuck the shells into the moat when they were finished.

-All this activity has attracted the interest of Yeoman Sergeant Clive Towell.

-Yeoman Warders are naturally nosy, so we want to know what's happening down there.

Morning, Alfred.

-You all right, Clive?

-The dig is being overseen by assistant curator of historic buildings Alfred Hawkins.

For him, it's a once-in-a-career chance to sift through the soil of a World Heritage site.

-The kind of digs on this scale haven't happened since the 1990s.

Being on a scheduled monument, pretty much everything has some sort of archaeological significance.

-Alfred has laid out some prize finds.

-So we've got this, which is a fragment of a cannonball.

They're notoriously hard to date, but it might be something like the 1600s.

-Obviously, the Tower was one of the biggest arms depots, I suppose, in the country.

-Yes, it shows the moat as part of that whole kind of defensive structure.

And then we've got a fragment of glazed medieval tile.

These would be used in places which are fairly significant or high status.

So they're a way of showing how much money you have.

-There's also a surprise discovery.

-This is an interesting one.

So this is a VD syringe.

-Wow.

-So in modern terminology, for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.

-Wow.

Really heavy.

-This probably came from the moat when it was in use as a training ground for World War I. Venereal disease is a real issue if you're trying to maintain kind of a fighting force.

So it was combated by using one of these in order to inject mercury.

-Until the 1900s, deadly mercury was used to treat ailments from flu to constipation and even syphilis, which required the poisonous liquid metal to be injected into the most sensitive of places.

-It's quite a brutal way of dealing with it by our standards, but at the time, this is... -Standard practice?

-Yeah, standard practice.

Throughout all of these things, what we have is effectively a cross section of the history of 1,000 years in the Tower of London, because we have fragments relating to almost every use that the Tower has been put through.

So it's really nice to be able to show that story and kind of continuity.

-The jigsaw is coming together.

Fantastic.

I mean, absolutely fantastic.

Thank you very much.

-Coming up, the moat transformation is close to falling behind schedule.

-It really strikes me just how much still has to be done.

-And Tracy tracks down the man at the heart of the plot to assassinate Elizabeth I.

-Well, it seems incredibly stupid that where Norfolk was concerned, his pride and his ambition blinded him to everything else.

-It's springtime at the Tower of London and the fortress is busier than ever.

The Tower's iconic moat is being transformed into an ambitious floral superbloom in honor of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

-It's so different to the last time I was here, and it was just flat green space, and none of that's left anymore.

-Over 9,000 tons of soil have been dumped into the moat in preparation for sowing 20 million seeds.

Professor Nigel Dunnett is in charge of the planting scheme.

-I've never seen the moat as busy and active as this.

-But with the grand opening on Jubilee weekend just three months away, Nigel and his team are feeling the pressure of getting the planting completed.

-But looking at this, it really strikes me just how much still has to be done.

It's a really tight timescale.

If we get behind with the seeding, it's not going to be flowering in time for the Jubilee weekend.

That is something that is really causing quite a lot of stress.

The time for sleepless nights is not over yet.

-While the superbloom team are flat out in the moat, within the Tower walls, forgotten tales of buried treasure are being rediscovered.

-Hello, Dave.

-Hi.

-Thanks for inviting us up.

-That's all right.

Take a seat.

-Beefeater Dave Coleman runs the Yeoman Warder archive.

He's uncovered an incredible event that took place in the 1950s, when the floors of the fortress were dug up in a highly unusual search.

A hunt for lost gold.

-So I found this newspaper article about the 1957 dig.

-Wow, "Searching for treasure in the Tower of London.

A general view of the scene during the search for treasure said to have been buried by Sir John Barkstead."

-Sir John Barkstead became lieutenant of the Tower in 1652 and amassed a fortune through corruption and extortion.

Pursued by the law, Barkstead fled the country, but not before burying his gold somewhere in the Tower for safekeeping and taking the secret of its location along with him.

-They originally dug around the base of the White Tower, but later on they dug around under the Queen's house.

-It must be quite exciting, though, when you've got all the officials in, the chief stood there, and they're digging, and they're looking for gold, and he's even licking his lips.

-They weren't the first to be fascinated by the hunt for Barkstead's buried fortune.

Another famous Londoner had already tried his luck some 300 years earlier, the diarist Samuel Pepys.

-Interestingly, he wrote about it in his diaries.

He says he sent a porter to go and get pickaxes to go down into the little cellar.

"We went to almost 8:00 at night," they'd been digging for some time, "but could not find nothing.

But our guides did not seem at all discouraged, for they being confident that the money is there."

-Digging in the ancient fortress with just a pickax was no easy feat.

But the reward would have been worth it.

-How much are we talking about?

-Well, initially Samuel Pepys put out the figure of £7,000, which in today's money is about £20 million.

So a substantial amount of money.

-Sadly, Samuel Pepys' efforts were in vain.

After three months of digging, he left the Tower empty handed.

-So the gold hasn't been discovered.

It's never been found.

So in theory, it could still be out there.

-I'd like to think it's still there.

It adds a certain amount of mystery to the Tower.

-They're digging in the moat right now with diggers.

-Barkstead's gold might be down there now.

You never know.

-I could find it.

-It's early April, two months before superbloom is due to open on Jubilee bank holiday weekend.

Horticultural expert Professor Nigel Dunnett has spent months finessing a detailed plan to create a sea of floral blooms that will evolve across the summer months.

And today, he's back on site to check up on the seeding process.

-To fill all this space with the flowers, we need at least 20 million seeds.

And all those 20 million seeds, each one has to be in exactly the right place.

So it might look a bit random, everybody throwing seeds across the ground.

But actually it's a really, really complex plan.

-But there's a problem.

-I think one of the main issues is birds.

I can see pigeons here already.

We're in central London, and I can picture at the moment Trafalgar Square covered in a sea of pigeons.

And that would be a real nightmare if that happened here.

The stakes are so high because this has to work.

I mean, there isn't any room for failure because the eyes of the world are on it.

-Over the centuries, the Tower has been a fortress and a royal palace, but its most notorious role is as a prison.

And nowhere is that dark history more alive than in the infamous Beauchamp Tower.

Named after the first prisoner to be kept here in the early 1300s, it's held the Tower's most dangerous inmates, and many of them left their own desperate marks.

-Can I get you to help me removing this glass panel?

Because I don't really want to end up damaging any of this historic graffiti.

-Preventative conservator Nelson Garcia Berrios is in charge of preserving this ancient graffiti.

-So if you just hold it here for now.

-This is exciting.

I don't usually get to do this kind of thing.

-And today, Historic Royal Palaces chief curator Tracy Borman has come to help him carry out a condition check.

-So just hold tight.

So we're just going to put it down here.

-And there it is.

-There it is.

-Oh, it's so incredible to see this without the glass.

And it's a little piece of history.

-After all these years.

-Exactly.

Hundreds of years later.

-Conserving these ancient historic archives is painstakingly delicate work.

-The Tower is just basically full of these little inscriptions.

If I see excessive dirt or dust, then I just very gently sort of use a wooden stick and sort of peek, you know, where the dust might be.

-As well as being a chilling reminder of the people who were imprisoned here, this graffiti also helps Tracy research a dark episode in the life of her favorite monarch.

-This piece is dated 1571, so well into the reign of Elizabeth I, and it reads, "Wise men ought to beware whose company they use and above all things to whom they trust."

Well, this is all quite cryptic, but what we do know is that Elizabeth I, as a Protestant queen, was constantly surrounded by plots against her life, Catholic plots both here and abroad.

This graffiti was written by a man called Charles Baillie, and the language he uses makes it very clear that he's been betrayed by somebody.

Well, I'm keen to find out more about this man and what on earth he'd got himself into.

-Charles Baillie's journey to the Tower started in the spring of 1571, when he was arrested at Dover.

He'd traveled from Europe carrying secret letters that placed him at the center of one of the most audacious plots of Elizabeth's reign, a Spanish invasion backed by English nobles that would put the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne and see Elizabeth assassinated.

-Well, Charles Baillie was just a courier carrying the letters.

He was a pawn caught up in a complex game of conspiracy.

It turns out the person at the center of the plot who'd given him the letters was a wealthy Italian banker called Roberto Ridolfi.

-Ridolfi had lived in London for years.

On the surface, he was a respectable banker, plying his trade in London's flourishing financial center.

But behind the scenes, Ridolfi was a secret envoy to the pope, plotting a Catholic invasion.

He found a perfect partner in crime when he met powerful noble and Catholic sympathizer Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk.

Norfolk's house still stands today.

-Well, this is the Charterhouse, the London home of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk.

And it's such an incredible time capsule nestled right in the heart of the modern-day city with its high-rise buildings.

-Norfolk was 32 years old, a highly regarded and ambitious courtier who had a close connection to the Tudor throne.

-Norfolk was actually related to Queen Elizabeth.

He was her second cousin, and she herself had stayed at the Charterhouse at the very beginning of her reign.

She held a meeting of her Privy Council up in the throne room.

-But Norfolk was still part of the Catholic nobility and loyal to the Catholic cause, in particular to Queen Elizabeth's cousin Mary, Queen of Scots.

-The great chamber has been much altered over the years, but this part is as it was in Norfolk's time, and he added this elaborate decorated ceiling, including his coat of arms.

Astonishingly, though, he also added these gilded thistles, which were a not-so-subtle reference to his support for the Scottish Queen Mary.

-The Italian banker Ridolfi had found a perfect ally in Norfolk, and Tracy's unearthed evidence of their correspondence.

-We get a sense of the growing relationship between Ridolfi and Norfolk in this series of letters that passed between the King of Spain and one of his agents, and in this one, the agent writes, "Roberto Ridolfi arrived here and gave me your letter of the 25th of March and those of the Queen of Scotland, the Duke of Norfolk, and a brief from His Holiness --" that's the Pope -- "exhorting me to embrace the business with which he is entrusted."

So we can see from this correspondence that Ridolfi has managed to recruit Norfolk into this plot for a Spanish invasion.

And there's all sorts of mentions of correspondence with Mary, Queen of Scots, all deeply incriminating.

-Norfolk was on the watch list of Elizabeth's spymasters, and when they came to search the Charterhouse, they found coded letters hidden between some of the roof tiles.

-Well, it seems incredibly stupid for a man already under surveillance to involve himself with Ridolfi, but it seems that when Norfolk was concerned, his pride and his ambition blinded him to everything else.

-Norfolk was arrested and thrown in the Tower along with Ridolfi's courier, Charles Baillie.

Being a noble, Norfolk was spared torture, but Charles Baillie wasn't so lucky.

-Charles Baillie was put on the rack.

Now, this was one of the most feared torture devices there was.

It involved wrenching the victim's limbs from their sockets.

Unable to stand the excruciating pain, Baillie revealed the names of his co-conspirators.

-Norfolk's fate was sealed.

In January 1572, he was put on trial and found guilty of imagining and compassing the death of the queen, a crime punishable by execution.

-Elizabeth's advisors implored her to give the order for Norfolk's execution.

They wanted to send out a message to any other would-be traitors, but Elizabeth just couldn't bring herself to do it.

After all, Norfolk was her closest male relative, and he was also from an extremely powerful family.

-Three times, Elizabeth signed the warrant for Norfolk's execution, but on each occasion she withdrew it at the very last second.

Finally, after five months, she gave in.

On a June morning in 1572, Norfolk was led to Tower Hill, where he was beheaded with a single blow of the axe.

-The Italian banker and plotter Roberto Ridolfi, who had coaxed Norfolk into this mess, actually escaped scot-free.

As for Elizabeth, she would never be the same again.

The whole affair had taught her a very harsh lesson.

There was nobody she could trust, not even or perhaps especially members of her own family.

-Coming up, the Beefeaters go on a secret tour.

-This isn't somewhere that even us, as Yeoman Warders, get to come that often.

-And the pressure is on as the Tower prepares for a concert fit for a queen.

-The choir really have to be completely on top of what they're doing because there's nowhere to hide.

-It's lunchtime at the Tower, and right on schedule, the ravens are out in force to entertain the crowds.

They're not the only animals who call the fortress home.

Squirrels, magpies, and even kestrels are regular fixtures around the inner ward.

But there is one species that is noticeably absent.

The common pigeon.

-Inside the walls of the Tower of London, the ravens rule the roost and so the pigeons kind of stay away.

-Yeoman Warder Chris Skaife has been the Ravenmaster for 18 years.

-The ravens know that this is their home.

Ravens are indeed very territorial.

-Ravens have also been known to have pigeons for lunch.

So Chris has a message for the local pigeon population.

-What I would suggest to any pigeon that gets too close to a raven is don't.

Because if you get too close to a raven, they might have a tendency to sneak around a pigeon and attack it.

-There is one part of the Tower that the pigeons can safely occupy.

-Outside of the Tower in the moat where the superbloom is going to take place, it's not really the ravens' domain, so they don't go out there.

And that is the pigeons' domain.

-But now the moat is the last place the pigeons are welcome.

Plans to transform it into an immersive flower meadow in honor of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee have reached a crucial stage.

-It's looking good over there, isn't it?

-20 million seeds have been scattered, but the pigeons have got wind of it and they're having a feast.

If they eat too many, there won't be enough to grow into seedlings.

And with just over a month to go before superbloom is due to open, this could spell disaster.

-Yeah, I can see you've got a little bit of a problem here.

-Yeah.

-Head of Public Engagement Projects Rhiannon Goddard has enlisted the help of resident bird expert Chris.

And he's got a cunning plan.

-Basically, it's a kite system.

It's a bird of prey that flaps around in the wind.

It will scare the pigeons away from the seeds and give the seeds enough time to actually germinate.

-Perfect.

-I've got one here, but I think we should name it Barry the Birdscare.

-But assembling the moat's new bogeyman or bogey bird... -I'm digging.

See what else is in here.

-...is a little more complicated than Rhiannon and Chris had bargained for.

-I've got some instructions.

-Instructions, that will always help.

-The instructions are in German.

-[ Laughs ] There we are.

Ready?

Oh, yes.

-Hang on a minute.

The other side.

He's got a bit floppy.

Come on, Barry.

-Right.

It's a two-person job.

There we go.

-It is.

-So there should be something to -- -So that slides in there.

-To here.

Need a different pair of glasses for this.

-I must say he's looking a little bit scary this side.

He's got stare-y eyes.

Hang on a minute.

I think we've caught a fish.

All bar the shouting, we are there.

Look at that.

-Oh, look at that.

Brilliant.

Perfect.

-Job done.

-Now all that remains is to see if Barry can deliver the goods and scare off the pigeons.

But the capital's most common bird wasn't always such an unwelcome presence at the tower.

Chris has been researching an elite unit of homing pigeons who were crucial to the war effort.

-The role of the homing pigeon was to deliver messages around the battlefield, both for the First and the Second World War.

In fact, the US Army had 54,000 homing pigeons and the British Army up to 250,000 pigeons, all trained to deliver messages.

-The Italian campaign had entered its second phase.

-One pigeon in particular, who became known as G.I.

Joe, cemented his place in history in October 1943.

Allied forces were attempting to liberate an Italian village that had been captured by German troops.

-The Americans had planned to bomb the village, but the British had actually gone into the village so quickly that the plan had to be postponed.

-The British troops were in mortal danger.

To save them, the air raid had to be delayed.

-The only way was to send G.I.

Joe with a message to bomber command to stop the bombers.

He done it within 20 minutes, and he traveled over 20 miles, thus saving the soldiers.

-In the Tower of London, the British Army pays tribute to an American war hero, the carrier pigeon, G.I.

Joe.

-After the war ended, the British Army was eager to honor the pigeon that had saved the day.

And G.I.

Joe was brought to the Tower of London to receive a medal for gallantry.

-This is the Chief Yeoman Warder, actually, with G.I.

Joe in the box, and the ceremony was actually conducted where we're standing now on Tower Green.

-The reward is the VC of the animal world, the Dickin Medal.

-And I'm sure he had some extra corn as well.

Not the chief, the pigeon.

-92 feet high.

At the bottom, the walls are 15 feet thick.

-Tower Green sits at the heart of the medieval fortress, and it's home to some of the oldest and most iconic buildings, including the Queen's House and the Beauchamp Tower.

But predating them all is the Chapel Royal of St.

Peter ad Vincula.

There's been a chapel on this spot long before the White Tower was constructed in 1097.

It's one of only 13 royal peculiars in the country -- churches under the direct control of the monarch.

And over the centuries it's played host to the weddings, baptisms, and burials of royals, tower residents, and prisoners.

Today, the music for chapel events is overseen by Master of Music Colm Carey.

-I've been in the Tower for 25 years.

I feel like a lifer.

-The current chapel was built for King Henry VIII in 1520, and is one of the Tower's few remaining Tudor buildings.

At its center is an organ with a rich history of its own.

-The organ was built in 1699 and was originally in the Banqueting House in Whitehall, and it was moved here in 1890.

And it's the most magnificent case, as you can see.

I think after the Crown Jewels, probably this is the most valuable thing within the walls of the Tower.

-And there's more to the organ's intricately carved exterior than meets the eye.

-The case was carved by the famous English woodcarver Grinling Gibbons, who, like a lot of tradespeople at the time, was illiterate.

And so, by way of signature, he put a pea pod.

And the story is, if the pea pod is open, he'd been paid for the job, and if it was closed, he hadn't been paid for the job.

This one's open.

It was done for the royal family.

So it's good to know that they coughed up.

-Colm oversees the music for every occasion at the chapel.

And his biggest event of the decade is on the horizon.

A special concert to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

-Hi, Colm.

-Hi, Roger.

-Thanks for coming in.

-Today he's meeting with Tower chaplain Canon Roger Hall to finalize the music for the occasion.

-Well, I've had loads of ideas.

But I've... -The Platinum Jubilee concert is a huge event for the Tower community, and Colm is looking back to earlier coronations for inspiration.

-I think it would be really nice to have a program of music that is based on the music that was performed for the Queen's coronation in 1953, some of which you'll know.

And I thought as well, given that we are a Tudor chapel, including something from the time of Elizabeth Tudor, from the first great Elizabethan age, would be nice.

-Oh, that sounds fantastic.

Start with something bold.

Finish with something bold, brassy but spiritual, and, you know, which the Queen would like.

And I think, above all, it'll be a real celebration of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, joining in with everything else that's going on.

Thank you.

That's really great.

-Welcome to Her Majesty's royal palace and fortress, the Tower of London.

My name is Sean.

-For Tower residents living in a thousand-year-old landmark means history is around every corner.

From the World War II bullet holes in the west gate to the nearly 700-year-old wall painting hidden in the Byward Tower, every Yeoman Warder has their favorite corner.

-My favorite part of the Tower is the sally port, and you walk through the middle tower and the Byward Tower and you walk past it.

It's innocuous.

It's there on your right-hand side, and people don't even look at it sometimes.

But the gates inside there are over 700 years old.

All our monarchs for the past 700 years have walked through past those exact gates there.

King Henry VIII, Queen Anne Boleyn touched those gates.

If they could speak, the stories that they could tell.

-This was the first royal palace and fortress of its kind to be built in England.

The moat, once filled with water, it goes all the way around.

-The newest recruit, Tam Reilly, is keen to discover what lies behind the Tower's closed doors, so his mentor, Lawrence Watts, is showing him his favorite piece of Tower history.

-Come on in, Tam.

We'll have a wander down to the Bell Tower.

-Now home to the Constable, the Queen's House is one of a handful of timber-framed buildings to survive the Great Fire of London and is definitely off the tourist trail.

-So here we are, Tam, just coming off the beaten track into what looks like a pretty plain door.

It's pretty interesting to open up and see what's behind it.

-Built in around 1540, the Queen's House is connected by a secret passage to the Bell Tower.

Dating from the 1200s, it's the second-oldest building within the Tower and is named after the bell that sits on top of it, which was rung to sound the alarm.

But by 1535, the Bell Tower had been put to a much darker purpose.

-This is where Sir Thomas More spent about 18 months during the reign of King Henry VIII.

It's kind of special in here, because this isn't somewhere that even us as Yeoman Warders get to come that often, because access to it is through the Constable's home itself.

-Thomas More was Henry VIII's Lord High Chancellor.

But the two fell out when More failed to recognize the king's second marriage to Anne Boleyn and England's break from the Catholic Church.

He was thrown into the Bell Tower with a choice -- support Henry or face execution.

In the end, he stayed true to his Catholic faith and died a martyr.

-To actually be inside here and see how austere it is and how atmospheric it is, it really is something else.

-Upstairs there is a less morbid piece of hidden history.

-So we'll head up through the next couple of floors now, and we'll go up to the upper Bell Tower.

-On the third floor of the Queen's House, an ordinary-looking door leads directly into the cell above, where something extraordinary sits.

-So my favorite part about the Bell Tower, if you look down here, you can see we have a rather magnificent porcelain toilet.

-It's a rare luxury for a prisoner who never even made it inside the Tower walls.

-And now this was actually installed here for Hitler.

We were fairly confident we might be able to get hold of him.

-Obviously, you need all the modern comforts of the 1940s.

-Absolutely.

My favorite bit about this toilet is the fact that there's a note on there that says, "Do not use."

So just remember that.

-Brilliant.

-It's late April, and in the Chapel of St.

Peter ad Vincula, preparations are underway for tonight's special Platinum Jubilee concert.

The Tower's community, along with some invited guests, will be gathering to celebrate 70 years of the Queen's reign.

-It's a pretty tough program for them to sing.

-For Master of Music Colm Carey and his choir, there is just time for one last rehearsal.

-I mean, they're absolutely up to it, but it's been quite hard work and with still some hard work to do this afternoon.

[ Choir singing indistinctly ] ♪♪ It's wonderful to be able to perform this program and this concert in one of the Queen's own chapels.

Wherever you sit in this building, you are close to what's going on, and it provides for a very special environment and atmosphere.

It also means the choir really have to be completely on top of what they're doing, because there's nowhere to hide.

It's very, very exposed.

♪♪ But it's going to create a really special event this evening, and I know we're all looking forward to it.

♪♪ -Coming up... -Please just take a seat.

There are programs all ready for you.

-...it's showtime at the Tower Chapel.

-It really is a treat that I probably never would get to see anywhere else.

-It's the end of another day at the Tower.

-On your way, guys.

Take care.

Have a good afternoon.

-And after the visitors have left and the gates have been locked, Yeoman Warder Tam is enjoying seeing a different side of his new surroundings.

-When the Tower's open, especially at this time of year, it's absolutely crammed full of people.

After hours, you get a total different perspective of what it's like to be living and working in the Tower of London.

-Please just take a seat.

There are programs all ready for you.

-Tonight, there is a particularly special after-hours event at the Tower.

Up on Tower Green, the guests are starting to arrive for the Tower's Platinum Jubilee concert, a musical tribute to Queen Elizabeth II's 70-year reign.

Yeoman Warder Matt Pryme is the chapel clerk.

-They're not just any old concerts.

We've got a choir and the musicians are world class, and it really is a treat that I probably never would get to see anywhere else.

-The Tower's connection to royal celebrations goes back much further.

For over 300 years, monarchs like Henry VIII and Elizabeth I would stay at the Tower on the eve of the coronation ceremony.

The royal household would spend the night feasting and enjoying music before processing to Westminster Abbey to be crowned.

Today, the Tower is still at the heart of royal celebrations.

♪♪ ♪♪ The music soars out over the chapel, as it has done for centuries, heard by kings and queens throughout history.

♪♪ -There's always been music at the royal court.

And the sort of music that we hear here is specially designed to be sung in a place like this.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -And tonight's jubilee concert in celebration of the Queen seems to be a roaring success for the Tower's present-day community.

-Goodbye.

-Thank you.

-My pleasure.

-Master of Music Colm can now enjoy a much-deserved moment of relief, having pulled off the first Platinum Jubilee concert in the Tower's history.

-Glorious evening.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

-I'm ecstatic.

I'm exhausted in a nice way.

It's been a long day, but it's been an incredibly fulfilling day.

And to be able to share this event with lots of other people who I think enjoyed it, and it's just lovely to be part of something that really is historic.

Because when is the next time we are going to see a monarch on the throne for this amount of time?

-For Canon Roger Hall, tonight's concert was just a taste of what the Tower has in store across a season of Jubilee celebrations.

-I think Her Majesty the Queen would be absolutely overjoyed with what happened tonight.

I know she's a great lover of music, and as this was all dedicated to her, I think she'd feel very humbled, but Overjoyed by it.

Fantastic.

-Next time, the Yeoman Warders receive a special honor for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

-Three cheers for Her Majesty the Queen.

Hip, hip!

-Hooray!

-Superbloom, the Tower's huge floral installation in the moat, is in serious trouble.

-We have this immovable deadline.

The weather forecast has started to dominate my life.

-And no lunch is safe from the Tower's ravens.

-He stole your muffin.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪