Story behind the creepy ‘hand in the wall’ at the Tower of London

Anyone who has ever visited the Tower of London will know there is a huge amount to take in when wandering around the castle. So you could be forgiven for missing something as small as, for example, a hand-sized section of missing wall. With a hand floating in it.

Despite its distinct creepiness, many visitors miss the suspended hand embedded in the North Byward tower of the fortress – at, er, hand height. But there’s an gruesome story behind the object, as one resident of the Tower recently revealed, which dates back all the way to the grisly punishments seen in medieval times.

Influencer Megan Clawson, who rose to TikTok stardom for her videos sharing the various secrets of the historic fortress, where she lives (her dad is a Beefeater), shared the story behind ‘The Hand In The Wall’ on her page earlier this year. Megan described how she is by now “quite used to the gallows humour of the Yeoman Warders inside the Tower of London.”

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“They leave little humorous Easter Eggs all around the tower that many visitors miss,” added Megan, who told her 199k TikTok followers: “including the hand in the wall.” Walking through the tower towards the hand in the video, she then shared the grisly reason behind why it is thought to be there.

Megan told her followers: “The story goes that once upon a time you needed a password to enter. To give the password you were required to place your hand into this spice [indicates hole in the wall] beside the North Byward tower.” However, what she described next indicates there might have been a pretty awful punishment for anyone who didn’t know the word.

Megan dramatically informed her followers: “If you got the password wrong, they would chop off your hand right there and then.”

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