Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle has been lived in by monarchs for nearly 1,000 years, making it the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world.
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Quick Facts
- Location
- Windsor, Berkshire, on the River Thames west of London
- Founded
- Around 1070, shortly after the Norman Conquest, under William the Conqueror
- Size
- About 13 acres of castle grounds, with roughly 1,000 rooms
- Claim to fame
- The oldest and largest occupied castle in the world
- Original design
- Motte-and-bailey, with the Round Tower on the central mound
- Chapel
- St George's Chapel, built mainly between 1475 and 1528 in Perpendicular Gothic style
- Great fire
- 20 November 1992, which burned for around 15 hours and damaged about 115 rooms
- Family name
- The royal house took the name Windsor in 1917
The castle that gave a dynasty its name
The royal family has not always been called Windsor. Until 1917 the British royal house was Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a name that suddenly sounded awkwardly German in the middle of the First World War. George V swapped it for Windsor, borrowed from the castle that had been a royal home for centuries. It was a clever choice: one word that sounded reassuringly English and rooted the family in the landscape. So the castle did not just shelter a dynasty. It renamed it.
A Norman fortress on a chalk bluff
William the Conqueror began the castle around 1070 as part of a ring of fortresses protecting London. The site was well chosen: a chalk ridge above the Thames, about a day's march from the capital. The first version was a motte-and-bailey, with a great earth mound and two enclosures, built of timber. Stone replaced wood over the following century, and Henry II made it a serious stone fortress in the 12th century. The layout of those early enclosures still shapes the castle today. The Round Tower sits on the old mound, while the Upper and Lower Wards spread out on either side.
The castle that stood firm and kept growing
In 1216 the castle was besieged by rebel barons during the First Barons' War, and it held out. Later monarchs turned it from a fortress into a palace. Edward III, born here in 1312, rebuilt much of it in the 14th century and founded the Order of the Garter in 1348, the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain. The order is still tied to Windsor, and its members process to St George's Chapel each June. George IV then gave the castle much of its famous skyline in the 1820s, raising the Round Tower and adding the turrets and battlements that make it look like a storybook castle.
The night the roof burned
On 20 November 1992 a spotlight ignited a curtain in the Queen's Private Chapel. The fire spread quickly and burned for about 15 hours, damaging or destroying around 115 rooms, including St George's Hall. The restoration took five years and was completed in 1997. A famous detail is the new hammerbeam roof of St George's Hall, built in green oak and designed to look as if it could have been there for centuries. The fire also changed how the monarchy paid for things. Opening Buckingham Palace to visitors in summer 1993 was partly aimed at raising money for the repairs.
Royal burials and a famous doll's house
St George's Chapel is both a working church and a royal resting place. Eleven monarchs are buried there, among them Henry VIII, Charles I, George VI and, since 2022, Elizabeth II, who lies alongside Prince Philip. Henry VIII's tomb has a curious story. Charles I was buried beside him in 1649 after his execution, in a vault whose discovery in 1813 surprised workmen. Then there is Queen Mary's Dolls' House, a perfectly detailed miniature palace from the 1920s, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens at a scale of one to twelve. It has working lifts, running water and tiny books written by famous authors of the day.
What to look for when you visit
Start with the Round Tower, the great mound-top keep visible for miles. Then look at St George's Chapel, where the carved stone and fan vaulting rank among the finest Gothic work in England. Inside the State Apartments, look up in St George's Hall, where the ceiling displays the shields of Knights of the Garter. Outside, walk the Long Walk, a three-mile avenue of trees stretching south into Windsor Great Park and ending at the Copper Horse statue of George III. If you are lucky, you will catch the Changing of the Guard, with a band and scarlet tunics.
Notable people
- William the Conqueror
- Henry II
- Edward III
- Henry VIII
- Charles I
- George IV
- George V
- Queen Victoria
- Elizabeth II
- Edwin Lutyens