Tower of London: History, Significance and Impacts as a World Heritage Site

This report explores the Tower of London as a world heritage site, including its history, cultural significance, and economic impacts. It discusses the positive and negative impacts of heritage tourism and the importance of preserving heritage sites. The Tower of London served as a prison, armoury, menagerie, treasury, royal mint, public record office, and the crown jewels of England. It is protected by UNESCO and is the world's most famous and oldest prison.

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................3
TASK ...................................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
A world heritage site is basically a landmark or a region which is protected and secured with
the legal protection by an international group meeting managed by the UNESCO (united nations
educational, scientific and cultural organisation). The world heritage sites are basically selected by
UNESCO for having the social, cultural, scientific and historical or other various from of
significance. A world heritage site should be different and unique landmark which people can
identify easily in the terms of geographically and historically (Torres-González, and et. Al, 2021). A
world heritage site can be a monuments, building, historical structures and many more. A World
Heritage Site may intend a extraordinary achievement of humankind, and serve as evidence of
intellectual past or it might be a geographical region of outstanding natural beauty. The world
heritage site chosen for this respective report is tower of London which is situated in UK (Sesana,
and et. Al, 2020). The owner of the tower of London is queen Elizabeth 2 . This property is built up
in the area of 12 acres, the creation process was started in 1078 and finished in 1100. the following
report is going to cover the history and background of the tower of London, social, cultural and
economic advantages of the heritage site to UK and what are its adverse impacts.
TASK
William the conqueror has founded the tower of London after his well known success and
victory at Hastings in 1066 by using a big defensive Roman wall which is also known as the
London wall. Earlier it as known as the white tower but from the 12th century it has been known as
the tower of London. The tower was built in about 20 years and it was built the largest and the
strongest concentric castle and the medieval king also built splendid royal lodgings. In 13th century
the tower grasped another function. Between 1100 and 1952 around 8000 people were put behind
bars within its walls for committing crimes like murder, debt, sorcery etc. to protect their
possessions and themselves, the queen and the king used the tower when any mishap happened.
Arms and armours were developed, tested and stored in the tower of London until the 1800s
(Jimura, 2018). The tower of London was a royal residence, basically a complex of several
buildings within the two concentric rings of the defending walls. In the English history, the tower of
London has played a prominent role. To control the country it was important to control the tower of
London. The tower served as a prison, armoury, menagerie, treasury, royal mint, public record
office, and the crown jewels of England. There are basically three types of heritage sites: cultural,
natural and mixed. Cultural heritage sites are those which includes numerous of buildings,
archaeological sites, monumental sculpture etc. natural heritage sites are those which are restricted
to some specific areas. Theses sites refers to the natural characteristics, geological as well as

physiological formations and the areas that represent the habitat of species of animals, plants and
natural sites. Lastly, the mixed heritage sites, these include both the aspects natural and the cultural
significance. The world heritage list's ratio of the cultural and the natural sites is 3 to 1. the criteria
of the creation, selection and the nomination of the heritage sites is to represent a masterpiece
created by genius and creative humans, to show the essential interchange of the human values
within a time period and cultural area of the world, to be an appreciable instance of a type of a
building, architectural or technological landscape which shows different phases in the history of
humans (Bosson, Huss, and Osipova, 2019).
It is important to preserve the heritage sites as it shapes the society of humans. People have
grown up on mythologies, fables, stories etc. which have helped them in constructing their identities
. Humans have been relied on their past to create the present and future. The earlier generation have
shaped the world. It is essential to protect and secure the heritage sites as it adds a character to a
place and community. The historic surroundings is a verified source of advantage to general
economies, especially through tourism. An fascinating heritage is beneficial in drawing attention of
extrinsic investment as well as maintaining current business and not only tourism. A better and
greater social inclusiveness can be accomplished by protecting the heritage sites. Heritage sites are
the best educational source for the people of all the generations. For creating the sustainable
communities, heritage buildings is necessary. Preserving the heritage sites is important as it helps
the people to have a sense of a place and have a connection with the past. These also tells about the
historic culture, lifestyle, famous things and many more (Wang, Lu, and Hung, 2021). The heritages
designed and created in past are made by the unique materials such as heart pine, old brick etc.
which have detailed work on it, which is very rare to find in today's heritage sites and buildings. In
relation to tower of London, it is important preserve because it is the world's most famous and the
oldest prisons. Also the tower of London is protected by UNESCO, so the work is conducted with
strict operational guidelines. The economical advantages to a country of heritage sites are: it
generates money into the economic system, enhances the businesses as well as tax revenues, create
employment opportunities, aid in diversifying the local economy, encourage in maintaining and
developing the current amenities and so on. Some social benefits are: aids in building up the
social capital, encourage a positive behaviour, assist in improving the image and pride of the
economy, help in beautifying the community, gives students the opportunity to research, take
education and job placements, makes the healthy relationships among the community, increases the
local investment in resources of heritage that supports the tourism services and so on. Lastly some
of the cultural benefits are: helps in preserving the heritages, enhance the awareness of the tourists
sites and more (Cigna, Tapete, and Lee, 2018).

There are some negative impacts of heritage tourism like it can result into a lack of
understanding and appreciation of the society, culture and heritage of the place inside the broad
community and as a outcome of lacking or improper in presenting, it can decrease the security and
preservation of heritage over the span of time and some tourism activities can unconsciously
encourage stealing of cultural resources. There are various conceptions that can pose for or against
heritage tourism, but inevitably it is the way forward and with careful consideration of all the issues
and implementation of adequate management plans it can be a prominent economic resource but
more importantly it can bring awareness to the heritage within the local communities instilling a
sense of pride and cultural identity that they may not have previously understood or known (Migoń,
2018). Tourism contributes to more than 5% of global gas emissions. Tourism is also a barrier in the
development of the state. The negative impacts of the tourism are substantial , this involve the
reduction of natural resources, pollution and waste issues. Tourism also builds up a pressure on the
natural resources by over consumption of them in the areas where the resources are already scarce.
To minimise the negative outcome of the tourism in these heritage sites there should be limited
number of tourists should be allowed to visit the property to reduce the waste as well as pollution.
The ticket prices should get increased to attract the good visitors. These are the few
recommendations which are suggested to minimise the negative impact of the tourism on heritage
sites (Ripp, and Rodwell, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above respective report it has been concluded that the A world heritage site is
basically a landmark or a region which is protected and secured with the legal protection by an
international group meeting managed by the UNESCO. A world heritage site should be different
and unique landmark which people can identify easily in the terms of geographically and
historically. The tower of London was built in about 20 years and it was built the largest and the
strongest concentric castle. The tower served as a prison, armoury, menagerie, treasury, royal mint,
public record office, and the crown jewels of England. It is important to preserve the heritage sites
as it shapes the society of humans. People have grown up on mythologies, fables, stories etc. which
have helped them in constructing their identities and it helps the people to have a sense of a place
and have a connection with the past. There are some negative impacts of heritage tourism like it
can result into a lack of understanding and appreciation of the society, culture and heritage of the
place.

REFERENCES
Books and journal
Sesana, and et. Al, 2020. An integrated approach for assessing the vulnerability of World Heritage
Sites to climate change impacts. Journal of cultural heritage, 41, pp.211-224.
Torres-González, and et. Al, 2021. Digital management focused on the preventive maintenance of
World Heritage Sites. Automation in Construction, 129, p.103813.
Jimura, 2018. World Heritage Sites: Tourism, local communities and conservation activities. CABI.
Bosson, Huss, and Osipova, 2019. Disappearing world heritage glaciers as a keystone of nature
conservation in a changing climate. Earth's Future, 7(4), pp.469-479.
Wang, Lu, and Hung, 2021. You gain when you give: Constructing a sustainable development
model for world heritage sites. Journal of Cleaner Production, 328, p.129547.
Cigna, Tapete, and Lee, 2018. Geological hazards in the UNESCO World Heritage sites of the UK:
From the global to the local scale perspective. Earth-Science Reviews, 176, pp.166-194.
Migoń, 2018. Geoheritage and world heritage sites. In Geoheritage (pp. 237-249). Elsevier.
Ripp, and Rodwell, 2018. Governance in UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Reframing the role of
management plans as a tool to improve community engagement. In Aspects of management
planning for cultural world heritage sites (pp. 241-253). Springer, Cham.