The King’s weekend home is forty minutes from London and one of the best days out you can have, provided you check the calendar before you go
Visiting Windsor Castle From London
If you have time for one trip out of London and want to see where the monarchy actually lives, go to Windsor. It is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. Kings and queens have lived there for more than nine hundred years. It is twenty-odd miles from the centre of London and you can be there before your coffee has gone cold.
There is one thing to check first, and this month it matters more than usual.
Check the Calendar
Windsor is a working palace. When the King has official business there, parts of it close.
This October there is a large piece of business. The public record of state visits lists one by the Sultan of Oman from 20 to 22 October, at Windsor Castle. With Buckingham Palace under long-term repair, Windsor is where state visits are now held.
During a state visit the State Apartments are used for the banquet and are not open to the public. There are road closures in the town for the carriage procession. Security is tight.
So if your day at Windsor falls on or near those dates, look at the castle’s official website before you travel. You may find the interior closed, in whole or in part, for several days either side.
On the other hand, if you happen to be in the town on the first day, you can stand on the pavement and watch the procession for nothing: the carriages, the mounted escort, the band. That is a sight few visitors ever get.
A published diary of royal events is a useful thing to consult for any trip that involves a palace.
Ordinary Opening
Outside special occasions, the castle is open to visitors five days a week. It is normally closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Hours are shorter in winter. Last admission is well before closing.
Book a timed ticket online in advance. It is cheaper than buying at the gate and you avoid the queue, which in summer can be an hour.
It is not cheap. But the ticket includes an audio guide and, if you have it stamped as you leave, converts into a pass giving free re-entry for a year.
Getting There
There are two railway routes and two stations in Windsor, which confuses people.
From London Paddington, take a fast train to Slough, about fifteen minutes, and change to the little shuttle that runs to Windsor and Eton Central. Total journey thirty to forty minutes. The station is directly opposite the castle.
From London Waterloo, there is a direct train to Windsor and Eton Riverside. It takes just under an hour, with no change. The station is at the bottom of the hill, five minutes’ walk from the castle.
The first is quicker. The second is simpler. Contactless payment works on both.
Coach tours from London often combine Windsor with other sights in one day. I would not. It deserves a day of its own.
What to See Inside
The State Apartments. The grand rooms used for ceremonies, hung with paintings from the Royal Collection: Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Holbein. St George’s Hall, where state banquets are held, is fifty-five metres long. Much of this wing was gutted by fire in 1992 and restored so well that you cannot tell.
St George’s Chapel. One of the finest late medieval churches in England. Ten monarchs are buried here, including Henry VIII and the late Queen, who lies with her husband, parents and sister in a small side chapel. It is also where several recent royal weddings took place. Note that the chapel is closed to visitors on Sundays, when it is used for services, which you may attend.
Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. Built in the 1920s as a gift for the then Queen. A perfect miniature mansion at one-twelfth scale, with running water, electric light and a library of tiny books written specially by the famous authors of the day. Children and adults queue equally.
The Round Tower and the view. The castle sits on a chalk bluff above the Thames. From the terrace you look down on the river and across to the school at Eton.
Allow two and a half to three hours.
Changing the Guard
The ceremony at Windsor is smaller than at Buckingham Palace and, to my mind, better, because you are closer.
The guard marches up the High Street with a band and into the castle, usually at eleven in the morning. It does not happen every day. The pattern is generally three days a week, and it can be cancelled in very wet weather. Check the schedule.
You can watch the march through the town for free. To see the handover itself you need to be inside the castle with a ticket.
The Flag
Look at the Round Tower. If the flag flying is the Royal Standard, red, gold and blue with lions and a harp, the King is in residence. If it is the Union flag, he is not.
Beyond the Castle
The Long Walk. A dead straight avenue running nearly three miles south from the castle gates through the Great Park, with a statue of a king on horseback at the far end. You need not do all of it. Walk fifteen minutes out and turn round for the classic view.
Eton. Cross the pedestrian bridge at the bottom of the town and you are in a different place. A single old street leading to the most famous school in the country, founded in 1440. You may see the boys in tailcoats.
The river. Boat trips run from the promenade for most of the year.
The town itself is pleasant, full of tea rooms and rather a lot of shops selling royal mugs.
Is It Worth the Money?
Two views, since I try to be fair.
Some visitors find the admission steep for what is, in parts, a walk through rooms behind a rope, with no photographs allowed inside. On a crowded summer day you shuffle. If the State Apartments are closed, the reduced ticket still is not cheap.
Others, and I am one, think it is the best single royal site in the country. You get nine centuries of history in one place, a great church, a great art collection and a living institution. Buckingham Palace, by comparison, is open only in summer and is a nineteenth-century house.
If you only do one, do this one.
A Suggested Day
Leave Paddington at about nine. Be at the castle for opening. Watch the guard at eleven if it is on. Lunch in the town. Walk the first stretch of the Long Walk. Cross to Eton for tea. Take the Waterloo train back along the river as the light goes.
The London Prat has been turned away from better castles and reports on the experience in its British satirical news on visiting a castle and its London satirical news about the train to Windsor. Bohiney Magazine covers a country whose oldest castle was built in 1955 and has a mouse.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
