Sebastian and Hero's London: Tower Hill

As readers of the Sebastian St. Cyr series know, Paul Gibson lives on Tower Hill. So what was Tower Hill? Well, here's a print (from a late eighteenth century drawing) of one of the old houses on Tower Hill:

Basically, Tower Hill was (and is) the area just to the north of the Tower of London. In Sebastian's time, it was still occupied by old, one and two story, mainly stone houses that had been there since the days when the Tower was the site of important executions. Very few people were actually beheaded inside the Tower itself; most died on a scaffold erected on Tower Hill.

To the east of Tower Hill lay St. Katherine's, where Gibson takes his eventful walk in Why Kings Confess, and which I plan to write about soon. Like St. Katherine's, Tower Hill was in the London Borough of the Tower Hamlets. And remember, in Sebastian's time, the Tower still had its moat. Here's a print from 1820:

Note to Ali, Veronica, and Suzanne: you all had the same question in the comments on the last post; I've answered it there. Life has been a bit hectic this past week, and tomorrow my daughter is driving in from San Antonio for a long weekend.