Windsor Castle
Travel Location: Windsor,United-Kingdom
Occasionally we have absolutely brilliant timing, and our visit to Windsor Castle could not have been timed better. On Saturday 18 November we arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard in the area outside St. George’s Chapel. The ceremony lasted a full 30 minutes and I have no idea what any of it meant. Soldiers came and went, yelled and stomped. The band played. Then soldiers came and went, yelled and stomped. I looked through the Windsor Castle guide book, though a book on British soldiers and online. I still have no idea what any of the ceremony meant. It was still impressive to watch, and I do recommend it.
The soldiers currently guarding Windsor are the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters (sometimes written as the Worcester and Sherwood Foresters), a line infantry regiment in the British Army. I was only able to determine this by carefully going over photographs we took to identify what was written on the band’s drums, what they were wearing, and what the symbol on their hats was. I had decided that if I could not determine what they were doing I could at least determine who they were.
Windsor Castle in November
I caught enough of what was written on their drums to track down the name of their regiment and confirm it with the ‘stars’ on their hats (which are of course not really stars, but that is what they remind me of). Their uniforms took a bit more digging because they are really rare, and differ a bit between the summer and winter versions. Although they were once worn by all the foot guards in the Army, today they are only used by the Worestershire and Sherwood Foresters while they are doing ceremonial duties in London. These ‘No. 1 Dress Uniforms’ are currently used so rarely that they are only made right before they are needed. As that is more than you probably ever wanted to know about those soldiers, I will move on.
Windsor Castle was founded near the end of the 11th century by William the Conqueror. His name should give you a clue as to how he spent his time. Since that time it has been added to and greatly remodeled by three others. It has served as home to 39 monarchs including Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It is currently one of her ‘official residences’ and she spends many weekends there. Including the weekend we visited, as the Royal Standard was flying above the Round Tower instead of the Union flag. Thankfully she was not using the State or the Semi-State apartments so we were able to tour all of them. Unfortunately I have no photos of them, as photos weren’t allowed. Windsor Castle, like many historical sites we have visited recently, offers these things the size of television remotes that give you an audio tour as you walk. Numbered signs as you walk through tell you what numbers to push. It is a great way to learn a lot while walking through at your own pace, and is offered free with admission.
The grandeur of these rooms was incredible and very ornate. It was a bit surreal to walk through a room and know that the Queen greets guests in some of them, and feasts are served in another. The most amazing thing was to see how things were reconstructed after the fire in 1992, and to know what was original and what was replica. I would never have guessed if the audio tour had not ‘pointed’ it out.
I did a bit of research before we visited on the fire in 1992. Mostly because I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how something made of stone could burn as it did. Apparently the roofs of many of the building affected were above false ceilings with plenty of burnable material between them. The photographs I saw of St. George’s Hall (which is an absolutely huge hall) with its entire roof collapsed into it were very hard to reconcile with the beautiful hall I stood later stood in. Not to mention standing in the Octagon Dining Room of Brunswick Tower and knowing that not only had the roof of that tower collapsed, but every one of its floors. It was open from bottom floor right up into the sky after the fire, during which it had acted as a flue. Photographs of that tower as it burned show flames leaping fifty feet into the sky. The marble fireplace that remains in the Octagon Dining Room today proved to be exceptionally hardy, as it survived temperatures up to 820 degrees centigrade. The black marble fireplace in the Crimson Drawing Room also survived, although much of the room’s magnificent chandelier (particularly its glass) had to be restored. Its sudden encounter with the floor as the ceiling collapsed may have had as much to do with that as the fire itself. Apparently the restorers were actually happy to have the opportunity to restore the Crimson Drawing Room so that they could return to it the vibrancy it had lost over time.
The fire itself is believed to have been started in what was Queen Victoria’s private chapel (and is now the Lantern Room), by a halogen spotlight illuminating (and then igniting) a curtain above the alter. It took two hundred fire fighters fifteen hours to get the fire under control. No one was seriously injured, but some of those who risked their lives to save priceless works of art did suffer some minor burns. Thankfully, and perhaps miraculously, many of the rooms that burned had already been emptied of their artwork before the fire started. This was in preparation for a massive rewiring project. Not everything was removed however, including an absolutely massive painting by Beechey titled George III at a Review in the State Dining Room. It was too large to be worth the hassle of moving for the rewiring, as was the ornate sideboard below it. As the fire burned, one of the princes wanted to return to cut the painting from its canvas but he was (wisely) not allowed. Neither the painting nor the sideboard survived the fire (nor the rest of the room really) survived. Every decorative element of the walls, floor or ceiling is the product of restoration, as is the painting and the sideboard below it. Upon close inspection (by me) the large sideboard that had been recreated perfectly matched the smaller ones that had been saved. To be part of a restoration project of this nature must have been an artists dream. It required a great deal of imagination as well in some cases, to minimize what needed to be done. For example, the very complicated inlayed wooden floor in one room had been badly scorched, but looks fine now. All they had to do was reconstruct it using the same pieces—upside down.
Of my favorite rooms to visit, St George’s Hall probably tops the list. This hall is 185 feet long and 30 feet wide, with a very high peaked ceiling. Prior to the fire the ceiling was covered with Baroque murals, but these (as well as most of the hall itself) were completely destroyed. The restored ceiling was build with young wood (oak I believe) using authentic medieval techniques to intentionally create the slight gaps between pieces as they dried out. Much of the ceiling was then plastered, and the walls and ceiling are now covered with the shields of all the past and present Knights. The shields of those Knights who disgraced themselves remain, but have been painted white as a sign of their disgrace. There were more than a couple white shields, and I rather wished there was a list of things (those polite enough to list anyway) that a Knight would have to do to be disgraced in the eyes of the Monarch.
What fascinates me the most about St. George’s Hall is its use for state banquets. During these banquets the dining table (which is at other times kept in the Waterloo Chamber) is expanded until it is 175 feet (53 meters) long. I have absolutely no idea how one goes about ‘expanding’ a table to such a length. Then the place settings for the162 people that can then be seated at this table are arranged by people standing on the table (in very clean socks I assume). This is so they can measure the placement of every utensil, glass, plate, napkin, candleholder etc with a ruler to make sure it is perfectly positioned to the millimeter. This apparently takes hours!
My other favorite ‘room’ (it was a thing really) was Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, which was actually never intended to be played with. I could not find its exact dimensions, so just take my word for it as I say it was huge! It has running water and working electricity, and is all built to a 1:12 scale. There were kitchen storerooms in the basement, an old fashioned lawn mower in the garden, paintings, furniture, and children’s toys. Day and night nurseries for the children, a King’s bedroom and a Queen’s bedroom, and each also had their own bathrooms as well. Simply put, it was too intricate to describe.
The grounds of Windsor Castle were beautiful themselves once we finished touring the State and Semi-State Apartments. In particular was the dry ‘moat’ around the Round Tower which is filled with a beautiful garden. We wandered a bit as we recovered from information overload before we headed to dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant very close to the castle. After dinner our day in Windsor continued, as documented in a separate entry (this one was beyond long enough) about the Windsor Christmas Tree Lighting.
