Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle stands on a chalk ridge above the River Thames in Berkshire, forty kilometres west of London. Built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century as a motte-and-bailey fortress, it became the longest-occupied palace in Europe when Henry I moved in during the 12th century. The Round Tower on the central mound was raised by Jeffry Wyatville in the early 19th century to give the castle a more commanding silhouette. Inside the walls, St George’s Chapel is praised by historian John Martin Robinson as one of England’s finest examples of Perpendicular Gothic. The castle’s state apartments were remodelled for George IV by Wyatville, who created a theatrical sequence of Georgian and Gothic interiors. The castle has been a royal home for nearly a thousand years and has survived sieges, civil wars and a 1992 fire. Edward III spent vast sums turning it into the most expensive secular building project of the Middle Ages, while Charles II rebuilt parts in Baroque style with help from architect Hugh May. Queen Victoria used it as a centre for royal entertainment, and during the Second World War George VI sheltered here from Luftwaffe raids. The name House of Windsor was adopted during the First World War after the royal family took the castle’s name. Art historian Hugh Roberts called the early 19th-century interiors “a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms.” Visitors enter the Middle Ward through the 14th-century Norman Gatehouse, its vaulted passage decorated with medieval lion masks. The Upper Ward’s quadrangle is framed by the State Apartments, the King George IV Gate and the Edward III Tower, with a bronze statue of Charles II on horseback at its centre. North and East Terraces overlook the Thames and Home Park, the latter containing a rose garden laid out by George IV and later tended by Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret during wartime. The castle’s walls mix flint galleting with Bath stone details, giving the skyline a dramatic silhouette of towers and battlements.