Windsor Castle

Why go

Architecture Windsor Castle occupies 13 acres , and combines the features of a fortification, a palace, and a small town. As a result, architect Sir William Whitfield has pointed to Windsor Castle's architecture as having "a certain fictive quality", the Picturesque and Gothic design generating "a sense that a theatrical performance is being put on here", despite late 20th century efforts to expose more of the older structures to increase the sense of authenticity.

What to look for

• New paintings were purchased for the castle, and collections from other royal palaces moved there by the king.
• In 1648 there was a Royalist plan, never enacted, to seize Windsor Castle.
• During 2007, 993,000 tourists visited the castle.

The full story

The original castle was built in the 11th century after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I, it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. The castle's lavish early 19th-century State Apartments were described by the art historian Hugh Roberts as "a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms widely regarded as the finest and most complete expression of later Georgian taste". Inside the castle walls is the 15th-century St George's Chapel, considered by the historian John Martin Robinson to be "one of the supreme achievements of English Perpendicular Gothic" design. Originally designed to protect Norman dominance around the outskirts of London and oversee a strategically important part of the River Thames, Windsor Castle was built as a motte-and-bailey, with three wards surrounding a central mound.

Useful to know

• Confirm current admission and opening times before leaving.

Your next visit

Estimated · Declared scenario and planning estimates; no live opening, weather, queue or booking service.