Tower Vaults was listed Grade II in 1973. The list description reads:
“Mid C19 cellars. Half in City of London. Situated below raised public terrace. Outer doorway with rusticated stone quoins set in partly rebuilt wall. C19 crane alongside. Wine cellars on 3 levels, 20 ins thick walls. Earlier cellars on this site said to have connections with All Hallows Church, the Tiger Tavern and the Tower of London. Iron spiral staircase and plain stone stair. Cylindrical iron pillars support brick vaulted roof set on closely set beams. Vats of 1910 - 12 of unusual Swiss design lined with glass set in concrete. These cellars are the last survivor of the formerly extensive wine trade of this area”.
HISTORY TO C.1970: Tower Vaults forms the lower levels of a massive warehouse completed in 1864 and occupied up to the Second World War by the Mazawattee tea company. The identity of the architect/engineer responsible for the building, commissioned by tea merchant George Myers, is not known. The warehouse was long regarded as a negative presence, obstructing views of the Tower. Its removal was a prime objective of the Tower Hill Improvement Trust, founded in 1933, with the Rev. P.B.Clayton, incumbent of All Hallows from 1922 to 1962, as a leading light. Badly damaged by wartime bombing, the building was finally demolished c.1950 and a public square, Tower Hill Terrace, laid out (to designs by Hannen & Markham) on top of the retained lower levels. A somewhat bleak space, Tower Hill Terrace is approached from All Hallows churchyard through gates with decorative sculptures by Cecil Thomas (1885 - 1976) – Thomas was responsible for several monuments in All Hallows church.
The surviving vaults were occupied from the late 1950s until 1973 by the wine merchant Asher Storey, founded by Gerald Asher in 1955 and notable for pioneering the marketing of then little-known wines to the British market.
LATER HISTORY: Even after the improvements of the post-war years, Tower Hill was generally regarded as an unworthy preface to the Tower of London. The 1960s Tower Place office development (now replaced by an office complex by Foster + Partners) did nothing to improve the area. In 1976 the publication Save the City described Tower Hill as consisting of “an amorphous series of roadways... Temporary and semi-permanent refreshment kiosks are untidily disposed on the western side of the space”. It concluded that “the surroundings of the Tower still present an immense opportunity for really imaginative environmental improvement”.
The upper level of Tower Vaults was converted as part of the Tower Hill Pageant visitor attraction, designed by Terry Farrell Partnership and completed in 1991. It appears that the principal elevation to Gloucester Court was largely rebuilt as part of this project and a pavilion, now demolished, added on Tower Hill. The Tower Hill Pageant was not a commercial success and Tower Vaults was subsequently converted for retail and restaurant uses, which remain today.
Tower Hill was transformed as a result of the major project to redesign the environs of the Tower completed in 2004 (for client Historic Royal Palaces) to designs by Stanton Williams. Visitor facilities are contained in a series of lightweight glazed pavilions – the Tower ticket office adjoins the eastern edge of Tower Vaults. A similar aesthetic characterised the restaurant space (now occupied by Costa Coffee) located above the ticket office and designed by architect Dyer (2007).