AA-2026-0E6D3D
On the image
A Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London stands at his post in the undress uniform — the dark navy Tudor tunic trimmed in gold, the embroidered royal crown on his chest, the flat bonnet — a costume so thoroughly unchanged since the reign of Henry VIII that the British simply stopped noticing how strange it looks and started charging admission to see it. His campaign medal ribbons suggest he spent the war doing something considerably less decorative than this, and the sunglasses suggest he has made a private accommodation with modernity while the rest of the outfit has not. The tourists moving past him in their postwar holiday clothes are getting exactly what they came for: evidence that England had been doing things this particular way since before their country existed, and had no plans to stop. Every great nation maintains at least one institution whose entire purpose is to demonstrate that it outlasted everyone who thought it was ridiculous.
Visually related — by likeness
Yeoman Warder, Tower of London, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-0E6D3D. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/yeoman-warder-tower-of-london-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20260E6D3D,
title = {Yeoman Warder, Tower of London, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-0E6D3D},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/yeoman-warder-tower-of-london-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Yeoman Warder, Tower of London, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-0E6D3D UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/yeoman-warder-tower-of-london-1950s ER -
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