Location: Castle Hill
Tel 020-7766 7304
Open: 9:45m- 5:15pm daily
9:45am- 4:15pm Nov- Feb
Last admission: 1hr 15min before closing
Closed: Good Fri, Dec 25- 26
Known as Windsor Castle is a palace and royal
residence located in Windsor, in the county of Berkshire, United
Kingdom. It is notable for its ancient ties with the British Royal
Family and for its architecture. Its origin of a medieval castle
date back to the eleventh century, after the Norman conquest of
England by William I the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I of
England (12th century) it has been inhabited by numerous British
monarchs, a fact that makes it the second oldest European royal
residence after the Royal Alcázar of Seville. Some of its luxurious
rooms, such as the "State Apartments", are architecturally very
interesting and have been described by the historian Hugh Roberts as
"a magnificent and unmatched sequence of rooms widely recognized as
the best and most complete expression of Georgian style. The castle
includes the Chapel of St. George, of the fifteenth century.
This fortification of the Windsor Castle was originally constructed
on a hill and with three walls around a central mound to serve as a
bulwark of the Norman conquerors on the outskirts of London and to
dominate a strategically important area of the River Thames. Its
wooden defenses were gradually replaced by stone, and at the
beginning of the thirteenth century it suffered a long siege during
the First War of the Barons (1215-17). Henry III built a luxurious
royal palace within the enclosure in the middle of that century and
Edward III went further with the reconstruction of the palace, which
created a larger set of buildings that would become the most
expensive secular architectural project of the entire Middle Ages in
England. The core of Edward's work survived until the Tudor period
(16th century), when Henry VIII and Isabella I gave the castle a
greater use as a royal court and center of diplomatic entertainment.
The complex survived the turbulent period of the English Civil War,
when it was used as a military barracks by the parliamentary forces
and as a prison for Charles I. During the Restoration of the
Stuarts, Charles II rebuilt much of the castle with the help of
architect Hugh May and created a series of extravagant baroque
interiors that still cause admiration today. After a period of
neglect in the eighteenth century, the kings George III and George
IV renovated and rebuilt the palace of Charles II without paying any
expense to produce the design of the current State Apartments,
decorated in Rococo, Gothic and Baroque style. Queen Victoria made
minor changes to the castle, which she used as a center of royal
entertainment for much of her extensive reign in the nineteenth
century. Windsor Castle also served as a refuge for the royal family
during the intense bombings of World War II and survived a fire in
1992. Currently at Windsor Castle, more than 500 people live and
work, it is a very tourist attraction. popular, home to state visits
and weekend home preferred by Queen Elizabeth II of England.
