House.

In addition a substantial number of objects are on indefinite loan to

the British Museum, National Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum and

Museum of London.

Additional access to the Royal Collection is provided by means of

exhibitions, notably at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, opened in

1962.

WINDSOR CASTLE

Windsor Castle is the oldest royal residence to have remained in

continuous use by the monarchs of Britain and is in many ways an

architectural epitome of the history of the nation. Its skyline of

battlements, turrets and the great Round Tower is instantly recognised

throughout the world. The Castle covers an area of nearly thirteen acres

and contains, as well as a royal palace, a magnificent collegiate church

and the homes or workplaces of a large number of people ,including the

Constable and Governor of the Castle, the Military Knights of Windsor and

their families, etc.

The Castle was founded by William the Conqueror c. 1080 and was

conceived as one of a chain of fortifications built as a defensive ring

round London.

Norman castles were built to a standard plan with an artificial

earthen mound supporting a tower or keep, the entrance to which was

protected by an outer fenced courtyard or baily. Windsor is the most

notable example of a particularly distinctive version of this basic plan

developed for use on a ridge site. It comprises a central mote with a

large bialy to either side of it rather than just on one side as was more

than usual.

As first built, the Castle was entirely defensive, constructed of

earth and timber, but easy access from London and the proximity of the

Castle to the old royal hunting forest to the south soon recommended it

as a royal residence. Henry I is known to have had domestic quarterswithin

the castle as early as 1110 and Henry converted the Castle into a palace.

He built two separate sets of royal apartments within the fortified

enclosure: a public or official state residence in the Lower Ward, with a

hall where he could entertain his court and the barons on great

occasions, and a smaller private residence on the North side of the Upper

Ward for the exclusive occupation of himself and his family.

Henry II was a great builder at all his residences. He began to

replace the old timber outer walls of the Upper Ward with a hard heath

stone found ten miles south of Windsor. The basic curtain wall round the

Upper Ward, much modified by later alterations and improvements, dates from

Henry II’s time, as does the old part of the stone keep, known as the Round

Tower , on top of William’s the Conqueror’s mote. The reconstruction of the

curtain wall round the Lower Ward was completed over the next sixty years.

The well-preserved section visible from the High street with its three half-

round towers was built by Henry III in the 1220s.He took a keen personal

interest in all his projects and carried out extensive works at Windsor.

In his time it became one of the three principal royal palaces

alongside those at Westminster and Winchester. He rebuilt Henry II’s

apartments in the Lower Ward and added there a large new chapel, all

forming a coherently planned layout round a courtyard with a

cloister; parts survive embedded in later structures in the Lower Ward. He

also further improved the royal private apartments in the Upper Ward.

The outstanding medieval expansion of Windsor, however, took place

in the reign of Edward III. His huge building project at the Castle was

probably the most ambitious single architectural scheme in the whole

history of the English royal residences, and cost the astonishing

total of 50,772 pounds. Rebuilt with the proceeds of the King’s military

triumphs, the Castle was converted by Edward III into a fortified

palace redolent of chivalry The stone base was and military glory, as the

centre of his court and the seat of his newly founded Order of the Garter

.Even today, the massive Gothic architecture of Windsor reflects Edward

III’s medieval ideal of Christian, chivalric monarchy as clearly as Louis

XIY’s Versailles represents baroque absolutism.

The Lower Ward was reconstructed, the old royal lodgings being

transformed into the College of St George, and a new cloister, which still

survives, built with traceeried windows. In addition there were to be

twenty-six Poor Knights. Henry III’s chapel was made over for their use,

rebuilt and renamed St George’s Chapel.

The reconstruction of the Upper Ward was begun in 1357 with new royal

lodgings built of stone under the direction of William of Wykeham, Bishop

of Winchester. An inner gatehouse with cylindrical towers was built at the

entrance to the Upper Ward.Stone-vaulted undercrofts supported extensive

royal apartments on the first floor with separate sets of rooms for the

King and the Queen ( as was the tradition of the English royal

palaces),arranged round two inner courtyards later known as Brick Court

and Horn Court .Along the south side, facing the quadrangle, were the Great

Hall and Royal Chapel end to end. Edward IY built the present larger St

George’s Chapel to the west of Henry III’s.Henry YII remodelled the old

chapel ( now the Albert Memorial Chapel) at its east end; he also added

a new range to the west of the State Apartments which Elizabeth I extended

by a long gallery .

During the English Civil War in the mid-seventeenth century, the

Castle was seized by Parliamentary forces who ill-treated the buildings

and used part of them as a prison for Royalists.

At the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 Charles II was determined to

reinstate the old glories of the Crown after the interval of the

Commonwealth. Windsor was his favourite non-metropolitan palace and it

was the only one which could be effectively garrisoned.

The architect Hugh May was appointed in 1673 to supervise the work and

over the next eleven years the Upper Ward and State Apartments were

reconstructed. The result was both ingenious and magnificent, making the

Upper Ward the most unusual palace in baroque Europe.

The interior was a rich contrast to the austerity of the exterior and

formed the first and grandest sequence of baroque State Apartments in

England.The ceilings were painted by Antonio Verrio, an Italian artist

brought from Paris by the Duke of Montagu, Charles II’s ambassador to

Louis XIY. The walls were wainscoted in oak and festooned with brilliant

virtuoso carvings by Grinling Gibbons and Henry Phillips of fruit,

flowers, fish and birds The climax of Charles II’s reconstruction was

St George’s Hall and the King’s Chapel with murals by Verrio. In the

former there were historical scenes of Edward III and the Black Prince, as

well as Charles II in Grater robes enthroned in glory, and in the latter

Christ’s miracles and the Last Supper. All were destroyed by Wyatville inn

1829. The source of inspiration for the new rooms at Windsor was the

France of Louis XIY, but the use of wood rather than coloured marbles

gave Windsor a different character and established a fashion which was

copied in many English country houses.

William III and the early Hanoverian kings spent more time at Hampton

Court than at Windsor. Windsor, however, came back into its own in the

reign of George III, who disliked Hampton Court, which had unhappy memories

for him

From 1777 George III reconstructed the Queen’s Lodge to the south of

the Castle. He also restored St George’s Chapel in the 1780s.At the same

time a new state entrance and Gothic staircase were constructed for the

State Apartments.

As well as his work in the Castle, George III modernised Frogmore in

the Home Park as a retreat for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and reclaimed

some of the Great Park for agriculture. The King designed a special

Windsor uniform of blue cloth with red and gold facings, a version of

which is still worn on occasions today. The King loved the Castle and

its romantic associations. In 1805 he revived the formal ceremonies of

installation of Knights of the Garter at Windsor.

When George IY inherited the throne, he shared his father’s

romantic architectural enthusiasm for Windsor and determined to continue

the Gothic transformation and the creation of convenient, comfortable and

splendid new royal apartments.

In many ways Windsor Castle enjoyed its apogee in the reign of

Queen Victoria.. She spent the largest portion of every year at Windsor,

and in her reign it enjoyed the position of principal palace of the British

monarchy and the focus of the British Empire as well as nearly the whole

of royal Europe. The Castle was visited by heads of state from all over the

world and was the scene of a series of splendid state visits. On these

occasions the state rooms were used for their original purpose by royal

guests. The visits of King Louis Philippe in 1844 and the Emperor Napoleon

III inn 1855 were especially successful. They were invested at Windsor with

the Order of the Garter in formal ceremonies, as on other occasions were

King Victor Emanuel I of Italy and the Emperor William I of Germany.

For the most of the twentieth century Windsor Castle survived as it was in

the nineteenth century. The Queen and her family spend most of their

private weekends at the Castle.

A distinctive feature of hospitality at Windsor Castle are the

invitations to «dine and sleep» which go back to Queen Victoria’s time

and encompass people prominent in many walks of life including The

Queen’s ministers. On such occasions, The Queen shows her guests a

specially chosen exhibition of treasures from the Royal Collection.

THE GALLERY,THE CHINA MUSEUM

The central vaulted undercroft, originally created by James Wyatt and

extended in the same style by Jeffry Wyatville to serve as the principal

entrance hall to the State Apartments, was cut off when the Grand Staircase

was reoriented in the reign of Queen Victoria. It has recently been

redesigned and now houses a changing exhibition of works of art from the

Royal Collection, which include Old Master drawings from the world-famous

Print Room in the Royal Library.

The carved Ionic capitals of the columns survive from Hugh May’s

alterations for Charles II. In cases round the walls are displayed

magnificent china services from leading English and European porcelain

manufacturers: Serves, Meiden, Copenhagen, Naples, Rockingham and

Worchester. These are still used for royal banquets and other important

occasions.

There are some famous paintings in Windsor Castle: Van Dyke’s «Triple

Portrait of Charles I» painted to send to Bernie in Italy to enable him to

sculpture a bust of the King; Colonel John St.Leger, a friend of the Prince

Regent, by Gainsborough;Vermeer’s portrait of a lady at the virginals; The

five eldest children of Charles I by Van Dyke; John Singleton Copley, the

American artist, painted the three youngest daughters of George III and

Queen Charlotte:Princesses Mary, Sophia and Amelia, none of whom left

legitimate descendants and The Campo SS. Giovanniie Paolo Canaletto etc.

ST GEORGE’S CHAPEL

St George’s Chapel is the spiritual home of the Prodder of the Garter,

Britain’s senior Order of Chivalry, founded by King Edward III in 1348. St

George is the patron saint of the Order.

The architecture of the Chapel ranks among the finest examples of

Perpendicular Gothic, the late medieval style of English architecture.

Unlike most of the other great churches ,St George’s Chapel has its

principal or «show» front on the south , facing the Henry YIII gate and

running almost the length of the Lower Ward.

As Sovereign of the Order of the Garter, The Queen attends a service in

the Chapel in June each year, together with the Knights and Ladies of the

Order. Today thirteen Military Knights of Windsor represent the Knights of

the Garter in ST George’s Chapel at regular services. Ten sovereigns are

buried in the Chapel, as are buried in the Chapel, as are other members

of the royal family, many represented by magnificent tombs.

The Albert Memorial Chapel

The richly decorated interior is a Victorian masterpiece, created by

Sir George Gilbert Scott for Queen Victoria in 1863-73 to commemorate her

husband Albert.

The vaulted ceiling is decorated in gold mosaic by Antonio Salviati.

The figures in the false west window represent sovereigns, clerics and

others associated with St George’s Chapel. The inlaid marble panels around

the lower walls depict scenes from Scripture.

This was the site of one of the Castle’s earliest chapels, built in

1240 by King Henry III and adapted by King Edward III in the 1350s as

the first chapel of the College of St George and the Order of the

Garter. When the existing St George’s Chapel was built in 11475-15528, this

small chapel fell into disuse. Subsequent plans to turn it into a royal

mausoleum came to nothing.

In 1863 Queen Victoria ordered its complete restoration and

redecoration as a temporary resting place for Prince Albert.

The Chapel is now dominated by Alfred Gilbert’s tomb of the Duke of

Clarence and Avandale who died in 1892.

The Great Park

The Great Park of Windsor, covering about 4,800 acres, has evolved out

of the Saxon and medieval hunting forest. It is connected to the Castle by

an avenue of nearly 3 miles, known as the Long Walk, planted by King

Charles II in 1685 and replanted in 1945. The Valley Gardens are open

all year round

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Westminster Abbey is one of the most famous, historic and widely

visited churches not only in Britain but in the whole Christian world.

There are other reasons for its fame apart from its beauty and its vital

role as a centre of the Christian faith in one of the world’s most

important capital cities. These include the facts that since 1066

every sovereign apart from Edward Y and Edward YIII has been crowned here

and that for many centuries it was also the burial place of kings, queens

and princes.

The royal connections began even earlier than the present Abbey, for

it was Edward the Confessor, sometimes called the last of the English

kings(1042-66) and canonised in 1163, who established an earlier church on

this site. His great Norman Abbey was built close to his palace on

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