Windsor Castle

Listen first. Gravel crunches under your shoes, a gull calls somewhere over the river, and above you a grey stone wall rises in layers, one wall stacked behind another. The stone is pale and rough, flecked with darker patches where repairs were made long ago. On a still morning you may hear the faint click of boots on a parade ground. This is Windsor Castle, and people have lived here, on and off, for nearly a thousand years.

The story begins with a hill. After William the Conqueror took England in 1066, he needed strongholds to control the land around London. This chalk ridge above the River Thames was a natural choice. It gave a clear view across the valley and the river traffic below. His first castle here was not stone at all. It was built of earth and timber, with a wooden fort on a raised mound and an enclosed yard beside it.

That mound is still here. Look for the great round tower sitting at the centre of the castle, high above everything else. It stands on the same artificial hill that William's builders raised. Over the following centuries, kings replaced the timber with stone, piece by piece. Here is a detail many visitors miss — the tower you see today looks taller than it once did. In the 1820s, King George the Fourth had it raised, so it would look more dramatic from a distance.

George the Fourth changed far more than one tower. He wanted the castle to look like a romantic medieval fortress, the kind found in paintings and novels. His architect, Jeffry Wyatville, added battlements, towers and Gothic windows across much of the site. So when you admire the castle's rugged medieval outline, you are partly looking at a nineteenth century idea of the Middle Ages. Real old stone and later fantasy sit side by side, sometimes in the same wall.

The castle is arranged in three main areas, called wards. The Lower Ward lies near the town, the Middle Ward holds the Round Tower, and the Upper Ward contains the royal apartments. Walking from one to the next, you climb gently and move from public spaces toward private ones. It is a useful way to read the place. The closer you get to the Upper Ward, the closer you are to where the monarch actually lives and works.

And that is the key point. Windsor is not a ruin or a museum only. It is a working royal residence, and it is often described as the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. Look up at the flagpole on the Round Tower. When the monarch is in residence, the Royal Standard flies there, a flag in red, gold and blue. When the monarch is away, you will usually see the Union Flag instead. One glance tells you who is home.

In the Lower Ward stands Saint George's Chapel, and it deserves your time. Work on it began in 1475, under King Edward the Fourth. It is built in a style called Perpendicular Gothic, an English form of late medieval architecture known for tall, straight lines and enormous windows. Inside, the stone ceiling spreads out in fan-shaped patterns, like ribs opening across the roof. Light pours through the glass and falls in coloured patches on the floor.

The chapel is the spiritual home of the Order of the Garter, an order of knighthood founded by King Edward the Third in the fourteenth century. It is the oldest order of chivalry in England. Above the wooden stalls in the choir hang the banners, helmets and crests of its members. Each knight has a personal design, so the space is full of colour and heraldry. The display changes over time, as members die and new ones are appointed.

This chapel is also a royal burial place. King Henry the Eighth lies here, beside Jane Seymour, the wife who gave him his only legitimate son. King Charles the First was buried here after his execution in 1649. More recently, Queen Elizabeth the Second was laid to rest in 2022, in a small side chapel alongside her husband Prince Philip and her parents. Many visitors pause quietly at her ledger stone, which is set into the floor.

Now for a second surprise. On 20 November 1992, a fire broke out in the castle's private chapel. It spread fast through the roof spaces and burned for many hours. Saint George's Hall and other rooms were badly damaged. The restoration took about five years and finished in 1997. To help pay for it, Buckingham Palace in London opened its doors to paying visitors for the first time. In a sense, the fire here changed how the public sees the royal family's homes.

Inside the State Apartments, you move through rooms built for ceremony and display. They hold paintings, armour, fine furniture and gilded ceilings from the Royal Collection. Saint George's Hall, rebuilt after the fire, is still used for state banquets, with one very long table running down the room. Look also for Queen Mary's Dolls' House, designed by the architect Edwin Lutyens in the 1920s. It is a whole miniature palace, with working lights, tiny books and even running water.

The castle and the town are tied together in one more way. In 1917, during the First World War, King George the Fifth changed the royal family's name. The old family name was German, and anti-German feeling was strong in Britain at that time. He chose the name Windsor, taken from this castle. So the building gave its name to the dynasty. When people speak of the Windsors, they are, without realising it, naming this hill above the Thames.

As you leave, take a moment by the walls. Look south and you may see the Long Walk, a straight avenue of trees running for several kilometres across Windsor Great Park. Turn the other way and the town's streets slope down toward the river. Notice how the grey stone changes colour as the light moves, warmer in the evening, cooler under cloud. The guards will change, the flags will rise and fall... and the castle will go on doing what it has done for nearly a thousand years — being lived in.