WINDSOR CASTLE
Windsor Castle is an official residence of The Queen and
the largest occupied castle in the world. A royal palace and fortress for
over 900 years, the Castle remains a working palace today. Visitors can walk
around the State Apartments, extensive suites of rooms at the heart of the
working palace; for part of the year visitors can also see the Semi State
rooms, which are some of the most splendid interiors in the castle. They are
furnished with treasures from the Royal Collection including paintings by
Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck and Lawrence, fine tapestries and porcelain,
sculpture and armour.
Within the Castle complex there are many additional
attractions. In the Drawings Gallery regular exhibitions of treasures from the
Royal Library are mounted. Another popular feature is the Queen Mary's Dolls'
House, a miniature mansion built to perfection. The fourteenth-century St.
George's Chapel is the burial place of ten sovereigns, home of the Order of the
Garter, and setting for many royal weddings. Nearby on the Windsor Estate is
Frogmore House, an attractive country residence with strong associations to
three queens - Queen Charlotte, Queen Victoria and Queen Mary.
In celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty The
Queen, a new landscape garden has been created by the designer and Chelsea Gold
Medallist Tom Stuart-Smith. The garden, the first to be made at the Castle
since the 1820s, transforms the visitor entrance and provides a setting for
band concerts throughout the year. The informal design takes its
inspiration from Windsor's historic parkland landscape and the picturesque
character of the Castle, introduced by the architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville for
George IV in the 1820s.
