The History and Treasures of Windsor Castle [antikvár]

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WINDSOR CASTLE WINDSOR Castle stands on a chalk outcrop overlooking the Thames, and from whatever direcdon it is approached, it rises magical in outline above the sur-rotmding countryside. Seen from a distance it is beautiful beyond imagination, for it is all perfectiy in proportion and the delicate flying buttresses of St. George's Chapel give a graceful relief from the rugged solidity of the Round Tower and the Royal Apartments. Viewed from close by, the effect is less satisfactory, because the extensive Gothic restoration and alterations carried out in the early nineteenth century by Sir Jefl6y Wyatville still bear an air of newness that may well delude the visitor into believing that Windsor is but an imitation of an ancient fortress. How false this impression is can only be revealed by a study of the castle's long and fascinating history. The Saxons had a palace at Windsor, but it was two miles lower down the river. William the Conqueror took the palace for his own, appreciating to the fiiU the pleasures of the chase in the nearby forest. But as an invader his primary concern was security and he selected the hill above the river near his palace as a site for a stronghold that would guard the approaches to London from the west. When its construction began is not known, but it is probable that the date coincides with the building of the Tower of London (1078), for Windsor Castle is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1084 as occupying half a hide of land in the parish of Clewer. Half a hide might mean anything between twenty and sixty acres; the castie at present covers some thirteen acres, but the additional land recorded in the Domesday Book was doubdess needed to clear the approaches. The form of the original fortress is unknown, but it was probably similar to the present lay-out of the castie with an upper and a lower bailey and a central artificial chalk mound. This mound, on which the Round Tower now stands, is fifty feet high and measures almost a hundred yards in diameter at the base. Provided with a well, which is BY B. J. W. HILL M.A. still to be seen beneath a bedroom floor in the Round Tower, it formed a secure keep to which a beleaguered garrison might retreat for a last stand. What buildings there were undoubtedly were made of timber from the forest, for not a trace remains of any stone building of the Conqueror's time. It was indeed a purely military establishment and did not become a royal abode until mo when Henry I moved there from Old Windsor as being a safer place for one whose claim to the throne was of doubtful validity. Of the buildings he raised, no indentifiable remains exist and the earliest architectural features of Windsor Castie date from the reign of Henry II, who replaced most of the wooden palisade with a stone wall, guarded at intervals with square turrets, still to be seen, though in an altered form in the Royal Apartments next to the East Terrace. It was Henry II also who first constructed a stone keep on the mound, the odd shape of which caused the Round Tower to be anything but circular, though its irregularity is seldom noticed. In 1189, shortiy after He^ II's death, the castle suffered its first siege when the English barons, first commanded by the Archbishop of Rouen and subsequentiy by the militant Bishop of Salisbury, attacked Prince John's army of Welshmen who had taken refiige in the castie. The Welsh took fright and fled; they were pursued and "put to worthy execution", but John himself escaped to France. Later, as King, he stayed at Windsor during the humiliating week, Jime 15-23, 1215, when he was forced to sign Magna Carta at Runnymede some two miles away. The following year the barons again besieged the castie, this time without success, though their siege engines did severe damage to the defences, especially in the Lower Ward where there was still a timber palisade. Henry III at once set about the task of repairing the damage and of strengthening the defences by building the western curtain wall. After some old houses had been cleared away from in front of it in 1852, much of this old wall was restored, but many traces of Henry Ill's work are still plainly visible in the rough-hewn heath stones close to the Curfew Tower which rises high above Thames Street. The Curfew Tower was built in 1227 and contains some of the earliest untouched masonry in the castie. The exterior is severely uniform, having been refaced in 1863, by the architect, Salvin, who added a sharply pointed roof in the style of his native casties to minimise damage from the rain. The tower contains relics of an old gaol with a pair of stocks in excellent working order; the interior walls were built of chalk, the only available material locally, and one of the old dungeons contains the beginnings of a tunnel through which a prisoner hoped to escape only to be defeated by the thickness of the masonry. Under the tower there is also the remains of a Sally Port (one of three in the castie) intended to form a secret entrance and exit in time of siege. The upper part of the tower contains the castle bells, brought there in 1478 and erected on massive timbers still nobly doing their work. A flight of steep, uneven stairs leads up to where stands the fascinating movement of the clock made in 1689 by John Davis, a native of Windsor. The clock, restored, but substantially original, is of great ingenuity and solid workmanship; apart from moving the hands with admirable precision and striking the hours like any normal clock, it plays a psalm tune, St. David's, every three hours, rings some merry peals and then goes through it all twice again for good measure. The next royal builder of note was Edward III and it was an auspicious day for Windsor when he was born in the castle on 28th November, 1312, for it was he who founded the Order of the Garter with Windsor as its temporal and spiritual home.