A Visit to Windsor Castle
As Lindsay and I have not been able to do anything really touristy around London lately, we thought it would be a good idea to head down to Windsor and visit Windsor Castle. We were going to aim for the 11:00 train and it’s a good thing we didn’t, as it was delayed for over an hour due to a signaling fault further up the track! We arrived at Windsor at about 1:30PM.
As soon as you exit the train station you walk out and are faced with the castle, which sits atop a hill overlooking the town of Windsor. From down in the town centre you can see it from almost everywhere. It’s a very large castle, much larger than Buckingham Palace by the looks of things. The main street heading towards the castle wraps around its outside edge, so as you approach the visitors gate you are walking around the edge of one of the castle buildings. As we climbed the hill we discovered what we feared the most — a huge lineup.
We joined at the end of the queue and eventually made it through to the front doors of the visitor’s entrance. When we finally got the chance to see the ticket counter, we realised we were really only half way done queueing, as there were huge queues inside the ticket counter, and at least 8 ticket counters open. At around £15 per adult on the door, they must make an absolute fortune. We had purchased our tickets at a discounted rate of about £10 through the Great Southern Rail offer. We still had to queue 
We finally entered the grounds and you are offered an audio tour. It’s a device that you carry with you and hold up to your ear so that you can listen to the guided tour. In each of the rooms there is a small transmitter broadcasting information. I found the device very annoying so chose not to use it. Wherever we went throughout the castle, there were people walking around with these things pressed up against their heads. Weird. I might have missed out on some of the facts because we chose not to use them but instead we were able to look around for ourselves with our eyes.
The public are granted entry to a very limited area around the back side of the castle grounds and the “State Apartments” block. You can’t go anywhere near the actual internal residency of the castle nor can you enter the courtyard in the centre of the castle grounds. While disappointing, you can understand why. After all, this is a residency, not a museum.
 Windsor Castle |
 Estate Apartments entry/exit |
 Windsor Castle Courtyard |
 Windsor Castle Courtyard |
 Windsor Castle’s very own post box |
 Castle Heads |
You can view more photos on my Flickr feed.
Photography, mobile phones, prams and dogs are all banned inside the estate apartments and the guide staff are very quick to pounce on people breaking the rules. On the occasion that someone’s mobile phone will go off, they’ll prick up their ears to localise it and immediately try and silence the offender.
During visitor mode, the State Apartments are set up with rope barriers in every room, encouraging the public to follow a single loop around the castle. At one stage we walked through a large dining hall, and on the other side of the room you could see people walking in the opposite direction. It took us about half an hour to get around to the opposite side of that room, and it gives you some idea of the scale of the place!!
If you’ve ever watched any of the documentaries about Windsor Castle you’ll know what to expect when you go in, and that is some rather elaborate rooms, all extremely clean and well kept with that “royal” feel about them. Most rooms contain nothing more than some furniture (mostly “acquired by Queen Victoria”) and most of the furniture is carved wood with a felt-style material. Most of the walls are wall-papered with a textured red fabric. Some rooms have what look like “secret” doors, which go who knows where, and they are rectangles of the wall with hinges and handles, so they blend in with the wall rather than being actual doors.
Each room in the Estate Apartments was set up with a specific purpose in mind, yet they all look rather similar. There are several drawing rooms, in which the centre piece is a large desk. One bedroom is shown with a dressing room and a closet however, the dressing room and closet are just rooms with chairs in them, as these are just for show.
According to one of the human guides we chatted to, when the apartments are used for estate functions, the rooms are reconfigured for the purpose. Undoing “visitor mode” means removing all the roped barriers and any signage, replacing the walkway carpet with a much better carpet, removing all the protective plastic barriers and so on that surround the doors and some walls (to stop visitors touching/damaging things) and reconfiguring any furniture as required.
Most of the rooms have a hand-painted 17th Century baroque ceiling, and those that don’t have a fairly elaborate ceiling, usually with a large chandelier hanging from the centre. Of the rooms you are allowed to tour through, there is Queen Mary’s Doll House which is a dimly lit room (preserving the centre feature) with a large doll-house of the castle in the centre of the room. It contains many rooms and miniature furniture and trees/shrubbery. Without the audio tour I couldn’t tell you very much more about it but I’m sure you can look it up on the web 
Following that, a China room containing a large collection of elaborate china dinner sets from the 17th century onwards. Each set is probably around 50 pieces and most of them are fairly ugly, although you can appreciate their historic value. Many of them are used for actual functions and this is clearly visible by the chips and breakages on some of the pieces. Again, according to the tour guide there is a large rubber sink installed elsewhere in the castle which is used to clean these pieces, very, very carefully!
Beyond these rooms you enter into the rest of the castle. The first area appeared to be a weapons display, with suits of armour hundreds of years old, hundreds of pistols and rifles from every era, swords and other weapons all on display. Glancing around you and looking in the glass cabinets, you are looking at an evolution of flint weaponry and guns. Look up and there is more, as the ceilings are all at least two stories high, walls laiden with more and more displays.
Beyond this room are dining halls, the crimson room and the turquoise(?) room, the apartment areas I mentioned earlier (drawing room, bedroom) a hallway and chapel. I managed to take a few photographs but because of the amount of people and staff around the place it was very difficult to get any good snaps. With respect to the castle I won’t post these on Flickr so unfortunately they won’t appear in this blog. You’ll have to go and visit for yourself
Our day ended with a trip to the gift shop, where I asked if the Queen ever comes through. “No,” was the answer, “Maybe once a year.”
Lindsay bought me a Windsor Castle scotch glass, and I bought Lindsay some Windsor Castle fudge.
 Windsor Castle Scotch Glass |
 Windsor Castle Fudge |
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