As a secure site it made perfect sense for the most significant records of the emerging royal bureaucracy to be housed at the Tower of London.

• 13th century - The Tower started to house government documents. Records of the Exchequer and the Chancery were located in St John's Chapel and elsewhere within the White Tower

• Late 14th century onwards - The Wakefield Tower was being used to store documents and came to be called the Record Tower

• Late 16th century onwards - Keepers of the Records complained about the appalling state that the documents were kept in

• 1838 - The Public Record Office was created under its first Keeper, Francis Palgrave

• 1840 - The Tower records were handed over to the Public Record Office

• 1858 - The Tower Record Office closed when a purpose built repository opened in Chancery Lane, London

• 1997 - The repository at Chancery Lane closed. The records were transferred to Kew to form part of the National Archives

Important personalities

William Prynne

As a young man during the 1630s, he had been accused of sedition twice and suffered the penalty of imprisonment in the Tower as well as having both ears cut off, his nose slit and SL (for seditious libeller) burnt into his cheeks.

However, his support for the monarchy subsequently won him the appointment as Keeper of the Record Office in the Tower in 1660.