Thursday 21st August LONDON -
WINDSOR
Robyn writes: It’s been a massive day out! One of my ‘big
ticket items’ for this holiday was seeing Windsor Castle, and today I finally
got there.
We were both sound asleep when the alarm went off at 6.30
this morning, but an early start was needed to get there with time to look
around. I had booked online for the 11.30 entry into the castle, which at least
took the pressure off having to arrive early. Just as well, too – the London
rail network definitely had us flummoxed this morning. We took two wrong trains
before finally figuring out how to get to Paddington Station. It’s absolutely
massive, and very hard to find your way around. Finally, we asked someone where
our train left from, and he looked it up on his phone and said, ‘It’s on
Platform 12, but it leaves in two minutes.’ Cue a very fast dash to Platform 12…..where
we saw our train gliding away. And the next one was in half an hour. Oh well,
so we went back up to the main platform and the shops, and found a coffee shop
to sit down and enjoy a cuppa, and look at the Paddington Bear shop! With
plenty of time to spare, we went back to Platform 12 – no train. A feeling of
unease set in, so I asked the lady there, who said, ‘Your train’s on Platform
8!’ Of course it was. So another mad dash across the main area, we found
Platform 8, and miraculously it was still there.
After that, the train travel went all according to plan. We changed trains at Slough, went straight into the train for Windsor and Eton, and it deposited us right in the heart of Windsor by around 9.30. It’s a pretty village on the Thames River, and completely dominated by the castle. We had a walk around the streets and looked in some of the shops (most weren’t open as it wasn’t yet 10.) We walked to find the toilets at Bachelor Park, and also found a statue of Her Late Majesty with the corgi pack! As we were walking up towards the castle, we noticed that the streets were suddenly studded with police officers, and barricades were starting to be brought out. A policewoman we spoke to told us that the Guards would be marching up to the castle in about 20 minutes, so we strolled that way, and installed ourselves right on the corner where they would turn, in front of the statue of Queen Victoria. A new guard detachment marches up to the castle every day, to arrive at 11. Once the changeover has been done, the old squad marches back to the barracks, further down the hill. This is all accompanied by a marching band, of course.
As 11 o’clock approached, the crowds grew bigger, and there were police and security officers everywhere, most with huge guns. It was great to see the soldiers march by – they were the Grenadier Guards Household Division. We had an excellent view, perched by Queen Vic. Once they’d marched into the castle, we decided that I just had time to have morning tea before I could line up for my castle entry, so we found a little coffee shop and sat outside to enjoy the Windsor air. Today has been quite cool again – cloudy and breezy, and never really warmed up.
About quarter past 11, I started heading up towards the castle, and Lex went off for a walk. However, the gates were all blocked and the crowds were there again, as the Guards were on their way back. I got a seat right up near the gate, luckily, so got to see them again as they returned. Once they’d passed, all of us (a lot!) who had 11.30 tickets were allowed to line up for entry. They have this system down pretty well, and we were in, had gone through security and were inside the castle walls by 11.35. We all got an audio guided tour to take with us if we chose to, and I did.
Windsor Castle has been one of the major seats of English royalty for 900 years. William the Conqueror chose the site and began building it only four years after the Conquest, both as a defensive castle and an excellent hunting base. Henry I decided to live there, and since then it has been a regular home for the royals. The late Queen, especially, loved the castle and thought of it as her main home. She, her parents, Princess Margaret and Prince Phillip are all buried there.
My first port of call was actually St George’s Chapel, where
they are buried. It’s also been used for some of the recent royal weddings such
as Harry and Meghan’s, and Princess Eugenie’s as well. I’ve seen so many photos
of the royals walking down the hill towards it; it was good to be doing that
myself! The chapel is lovely – unfortunately, no photography was permitted, so
I can’t show you any of it. The Queen’s grandparents and great-grandparents are
buried there as well, with marble effigies of them, but the more recent royal graves
are just a simple marble slab. Some much earlier monarchs like Edward IV also
have large memorials, and amazingly, both Henry VIII and Charles I are also
buried in a vault below the quire, marked just with a simple slab. I thought
the story of Henry VIII’s burial was rather funny – he was such a
self-important, bombastic, egotistical king. Apparently, he’d designed and had
started them making a massive grand tomb, with marble effigies of him and Jane
Seymour, and him on a horse in armour, and hundreds of figures and carvings. It
was going to be bigger than Ben Hur, but then he died before it was ready, and
his son Edward’s guardians were more concerned with establishing power than
worrying about gaudy tombs! And Henry had squandered most of the money his
father had left, so there really wasn’t the will or inclination to spend the
fortune that would have been needed. Various bits were sold off, the black
marble sarcophagus he’d had made was actually used for Lord Nelson’s burial in
the 1800s, and Henry and Jane are still in their ‘temporary’ vault! I do think
there’s a bit of karma there.
From the chapel, I made my way up to the North Terrace, where the entrance for Queen Mary’s dolls house and the State Apartments are located. The line was massive! I gritted my teeth, and was getting in line, when one of the security officers came along and said that the line for just the State Apartments was tiny. I decided I didn’t really need to see the dolls house, so skipped up to the front of the line and went in there – only about thirty people in front of me, as compared to three hundred or more.
The State Apartments were as dazzling as you would expect – we saw all of the halls and rooms where the State Banquets and ceremonies are held, visitors are welcomed, and the historic rooms of King Charles II and his wife Catherine. So many wonderful royal portraits – most I’d seen before often in history books and on TV, but amazing to see in person. The audio guide was great for explaining each room and its contents. It took well over an hour to go through it all. Unfortunately, like the chapel, no photos were allowed.
We saw the room where the 1992 fire started in the Queen’s
Private Chapel. Fortunately, because of renovations that were going on, a lot
of the treasures had been moved to storage. Also, as soon as it started, they
began moving everything they could out of the way. But it destroyed a large part
of the State Apartments, and some needed a complete rebuild. The Great Hall has
a huge oak beam ceiling; the biggest built in England in over 400 years. It was
wonderful to see what they have achieved in the restoration. The audio guide
had a visual display on it when we were in that room; we rubbed the screen to
reveal a photo of what the hall looked like after the fire. It was brilliant to
stand in the same position, and look from the total devastation that had occurred
to what they’ve achieved since.
After I left the State Apartments, I popped down to the café
there and bought some sandwiches to eat while I was walking around. I think I
covered all the areas – it’s so huge that it’s hard to tell! By two o’clock, my feet were hurting, and I
was glad to head down the hill and meet up with Lex.
He’d been on the ‘Long Walk’, a path from the castle towards the Windsor Great Park. It’s a long, bitumen, tree-lined avenue. He also walked down to the Thames and into Eton as well.
We walked back to the station, where a train was due. Within a few minutes, we were on it and heading back to Slough – here, we had to wait for about ten minutes, as the Paddington Express was a bit late, but by 3, we were back at Paddington. We only took the wrong train once on the way home, but thankfully it didn’t take too long. We called in to Sainsbury’s for something for tea, and were very happy to be back in the unit by about quarter to 4.
Since then, there’s been a load of washing done, a lot of resting, sorting photos and writing the blog. Tea was an excellent Chicken Tikka Masala and vegetable biryani (thank you, Sainsbury’s.) My feet are very grateful for the rest, I must say. But it was a wonderful day out!
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