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Hall and Royal Chapel end to end. Edward IY built the present larger St

George’s Chapel to the west of Henry III’s.Henry YII remodelled the old

chapel ( now the Albert Memorial Chapel) at its east end; he also added

a new range to the west of the State Apartments which Elizabeth I extended

by a long gallery .

During the English Civil War in the mid-seventeenth century, the

Castle was seized by Parliamentary forces who ill-treated the buildings

and used part of them as a prison for Royalists.

At the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 Charles II was determined to

reinstate the old glories of the Crown after the interval of the

Commonwealth. Windsor was his favourite non-metropolitan palace and it

was the only one which could be effectively garrisoned.

The architect Hugh May was appointed in 1673 to supervise the work and

over the next eleven years the Upper Ward and State Apartments were

reconstructed. The result was both ingenious and magnificent, making the

Upper Ward the most unusual palace in baroque Europe.

The interior was a rich contrast to the austerity of the exterior and

formed the first and grandest sequence of baroque State Apartments in

England.The ceilings were painted by Antonio Verrio, an Italian artist

brought from Paris by the Duke of Montagu, Charles II’s ambassador to

Louis XIY. The walls were wainscoted in oak and festooned with brilliant

virtuoso carvings by Grinling Gibbons and Henry Phillips of fruit,

flowers, fish and birds The climax of Charles II’s reconstruction was

St George’s Hall and the King’s Chapel with murals by Verrio. In the

former there were historical scenes of Edward III and the Black Prince, as

well as Charles II in Grater robes enthroned in glory, and in the latter

Christ’s miracles and the Last Supper. All were destroyed by Wyatville inn

1829. The source of inspiration for the new rooms at Windsor was the

France of Louis XIY, but the use of wood rather than coloured marbles

gave Windsor a different character and established a fashion which was

copied in many English country houses.

William III and the early Hanoverian kings spent more time at Hampton

Court than at Windsor. Windsor, however, came back into its own in the

reign of George III, who disliked Hampton Court, which had unhappy memories

for him

From 1777 George III reconstructed the Queen’s Lodge to the south of

the Castle. He also restored St George’s Chapel in the 1780s.At the same

time a new state entrance and Gothic staircase were constructed for the

State Apartments.

As well as his work in the Castle, George III modernised Frogmore in

the Home Park as a retreat for his wife, Queen Charlotte, and reclaimed

some of the Great Park for agriculture. The King designed a special

Windsor uniform of blue cloth with red and gold facings, a version of

which is still worn on occasions today. The King loved the Castle and

its romantic associations. In 1805 he revived the formal ceremonies of

installation of Knights of the Garter at Windsor.

When George IY inherited the throne, he shared his father’s

romantic architectural enthusiasm for Windsor and determined to continue

the Gothic transformation and the creation of convenient, comfortable and

splendid new royal apartments.

In many ways Windsor Castle enjoyed its apogee in the reign of

Queen Victoria.. She spent the largest portion of every year at Windsor,

and in her reign it enjoyed the position of principal palace of the British

monarchy and the focus of the British Empire as well as nearly the whole

of royal Europe. The Castle was visited by heads of state from all over the

world and was the scene of a series of splendid state visits. On these

occasions the state rooms were used for their original purpose by royal

guests. The visits of King Louis Philippe in 1844 and the Emperor Napoleon

III inn 1855 were especially successful. They were invested at Windsor with

the Order of the Garter in formal ceremonies, as on other occasions were

King Victor Emanuel I of Italy and the Emperor William I of Germany.

For the most of the twentieth century Windsor Castle survived as it was in

the nineteenth century. The Queen and her family spend most of their

private weekends at the Castle.

A distinctive feature of hospitality at Windsor Castle are the

invitations to «dine and sleep» which go back to Queen Victoria’s time

and encompass people prominent in many walks of life including The

Queen’s ministers. On such occasions, The Queen shows her guests a

specially chosen exhibition of treasures from the Royal Collection.

THE GALLERY,THE CHINA MUSEUM

The central vaulted undercroft, originally created by James Wyatt and

extended in the same style by Jeffry Wyatville to serve as the principal

entrance hall to the State Apartments, was cut off when the Grand Staircase

was reoriented in the reign of Queen Victoria. It has recently been

redesigned and now houses a changing exhibition of works of art from the

Royal Collection, which include Old Master drawings from the world-famous

Print Room in the Royal Library.

The carved Ionic capitals of the columns survive from Hugh May’s

alterations for Charles II. In cases round the walls are displayed

magnificent china services from leading English and European porcelain

manufacturers: Serves, Meiden, Copenhagen, Naples, Rockingham and

Worchester. These are still used for royal banquets and other important

occasions.

There are some famous paintings in Windsor Castle: Van Dyke’s «Triple

Portrait of Charles I» painted to send to Bernie in Italy to enable him to

sculpture a bust of the King; Colonel John St.Leger, a friend of the Prince

Regent, by Gainsborough;Vermeer’s portrait of a lady at the virginals; The

five eldest children of Charles I by Van Dyke; John Singleton Copley, the

American artist, painted the three youngest daughters of George III and

Queen Charlotte:Princesses Mary, Sophia and Amelia, none of whom left

legitimate descendants and The Campo SS. Giovanniie Paolo Canaletto etc.

ST GEORGE’S CHAPEL

St George’s Chapel is the spiritual home of the Prodder of the Garter,

Britain’s senior Order of Chivalry, founded by King Edward III in 1348. St

George is the patron saint of the Order.

The architecture of the Chapel ranks among the finest examples of

Perpendicular Gothic, the late medieval style of English architecture.

Unlike most of the other great churches ,St George’s Chapel has its

principal or «show» front on the south , facing the Henry YIII gate and

running almost the length of the Lower Ward.

As Sovereign of the Order of the Garter, The Queen attends a service in

the Chapel in June each year, together with the Knights and Ladies of the

Order. Today thirteen Military Knights of Windsor represent the Knights of

the Garter in ST George’s Chapel at regular services. Ten sovereigns are

buried in the Chapel, as are buried in the Chapel, as are other members

of the royal family, many represented by magnificent tombs.

The Albert Memorial Chapel

The richly decorated interior is a Victorian masterpiece, created by

Sir George Gilbert Scott for Queen Victoria in 1863-73 to commemorate her

husband Albert.

The vaulted ceiling is decorated in gold mosaic by Antonio Salviati.

The figures in the false west window represent sovereigns, clerics and

others associated with St George’s Chapel. The inlaid marble panels around

the lower walls depict scenes from Scripture.

This was the site of one of the Castle’s earliest chapels, built in

1240 by King Henry III and adapted by King Edward III in the 1350s as

the first chapel of the College of St George and the Order of the

Garter. When the existing St George’s Chapel was built in 11475-15528, this

small chapel fell into disuse. Subsequent plans to turn it into a royal

mausoleum came to nothing.

In 1863 Queen Victoria ordered its complete restoration and

redecoration as a temporary resting place for Prince Albert.

The Chapel is now dominated by Alfred Gilbert’s tomb of the Duke of

Clarence and Avandale who died in 1892.

The Great Park

The Great Park of Windsor, covering about 4,800 acres, has evolved out

of the Saxon and medieval hunting forest. It is connected to the Castle by

an avenue of nearly 3 miles, known as the Long Walk, planted by King

Charles II in 1685 and replanted in 1945. The Valley Gardens are open

all year round

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Westminster Abbey is one of the most famous, historic and widely

visited churches not only in Britain but in the whole Christian world.

There are other reasons for its fame apart from its beauty and its vital

role as a centre of the Christian faith in one of the world’s most

important capital cities. These include the facts that since 1066

every sovereign apart from Edward Y and Edward YIII has been crowned here

and that for many centuries it was also the burial place of kings, queens

and princes.

The royal connections began even earlier than the present Abbey, for

it was Edward the Confessor, sometimes called the last of the English

kings(1042-66) and canonised in 1163, who established an earlier church on

this site. His great Norman Abbey was built close to his palace on

Thorney Island. It was completed in 1065 and stood surrounded by the many

ancillary buildings needed by the community of Benedictine monks who

passed their lives of prayer here. Edward’s death near the time of his

Abbey’s consecration made it natural for his burial place to be by the

High Altar.

Only 200 years later, the Norman east end of the Abbey was demolished

and rebuilt on the orders of Henry III, who had a great devotion to Edward

the Confessor and wanted to honour him. The central focus of the new Abbey

was a magnificent shrine to house St Edward’s body ; the remains of this

shrine, dismantled at the Reformation but later reerected in rather a

clumsy and piecemeal way, can still be seen behind the High Altar today.

The new Abbey remained incomplete until 1376, when the rebuilding of

the Nave began; it was not finished until 150 years later, but the master

masons carried on a similar thirteenth-century Gothic, French-influenced

design, as that of Henry III’s initial work, over that period, giving the

whole a beautiful harmony of style.

In the early sixteenth century the Lady Chapel was rebuilt as the

magnificent Henry YII Chapel; with its superb fan-vaulting it is one of

Westminster’s great treasures.

In the mid-eighteenth century the last malor additions - the two

western towers designed by Hawksmoor - were made to the main fabric of the

Abbey.

THE NAVE was begun by Abbot Litlington who financed the work with

money left by Cardinal Simon Langham, his predecessor, for the use of the

monastery. The master mason in charge of the work was almost certainly the

great Henry Yevele. His design depended on the extra strength given to the

structure by massive flying buttresses. These enabled the roof to be

raised to a height of 102 feet. The stonework of the vaulting has been

cleaned and the bosses gilded in recent years.

At the west end of the Nave is a magnificent window filled with

stained glass of 1735, probably designed by Sir James Thornhill (1676-

1734).(He also painted the interior of the dome in St Paul’s Cathedral} The

design shows Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with fourteen prophets, and

underneath are the arms of King Sebert, Elizabeth I, George II, Dean

Wilcocks and the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster.

Also at the west end of the Nave is the grave of the Unknown Warrior.

The idea for such a memorial is said to have come from a British

chaplain who noticed, in a back garden at Armeentieeres, a grave with the

simple inscription: «An unknown British soldier». In 1920 the body of

another unknown soldier was brought back from the battlefields to be

reburied in the Abbey on 11 November. George Y and Queen Mary and many

other members of the royal family attended the service, 100 holders of the

Victoria Cross lining the Nave as a Guard of Honour. On a nearby pillar

hangs the Congressional Medal, the highest award which can be conferred by

the United St ates.

From the Nave roof hang chandeliers, both giving light and in

daylight reflecting it from their hundreds of pedant crystals. They were

a gift to mark the 900th anniversary of the Abbey and are of Waterford

glass.

At the east end of the Nave is the screen separating it from the

Choir. Designed by the then Surveyor, Edward Blore, in 1834, it is the

fourth screen to be placed here; the wrought-iron gates, however, remain

from a previous screen. Within recent years the screen has been painted

and glided.

THE CHOIR was originally the part of the Abbey in which the monks

worshipped, but there is now no trace of the pre- Reformation fittings,

for in the late eighteenth century Kneene, the then Surveyor, removed the

thirteenth-century stalls and designed a smaller Choir. This was in turn

destroyed in the mid-nineteenth century by Edward Blore, who created the

present Choir in Victoria Gothic style and removed the partitions which

until then had blocked off the transepts

It is here that the choir of about twenty-two boys and twelve Lay

Vicars sings the daily services. The boys are educated at the Choir School

attached to the Abbey ;mention of such a school is made in the fifteenth

century and it may be even older in origin. For some centuries it was

linked with Westminster School, but became independent in the mid-

nineteenth century.

The Organ was originally built by Shrider in 1730. Successive

rebuildings in 1849,1884,1909,,and 1937 and extensive work in 1983 have

resulted in the present instrument.

THE SANCTUARY is the heart of the Abbey, where the High Altar stands

The altar and the reredos behind it, with a mosaic of the Last Supper, were

designed by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1867. Standing on the altar are two

candlesticks, bought with money bequeathed by a serving-maid, Sarah

Hughes, in the seventeenth century. In front of the altar, but protected by

carpeting, is another of the Abbey’s treasures - a now-very-worn pavement

dating from the thirteenth century. The method of its decoration is known

as Cosmati work, after the Italian family who developed the technique of

inlaying intricate designs made up of small pieces of coloured marble into

a plain marble ground.

THE NORTH TRANSEPT, to the left of the Sanctuary, has a beautiful rose

window designed by Sir James Thornhill, showing eleven Apostles. The

Transept once led to Solomon’s Porch and now leads to the nineteenth-

century North Front.

THE HENRY YII CHAPEL, beyond the apse, was begun in 1503 as a burial

place for Henry YI, on the orders of Henry YII, but it was Henry.YII

himself who was finally buried here, in an elaborate tomb. The master

mason, who designed the chapel was probably Robert Vertue his brother

William constructed the vault at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1505 and

this experience may have helped in the creation of the magnificent vaulting

erected here a few years later.

The chapel has an apse and side aisles which are fan-vaulted, and the

central section is roofed with extraordinarily intricate and finely-

detailed circular vaulting ,embellished with more Tudor badges and with

carved pendants, which is literally breath-taking in the perfection of its

beauty and artistry.

Beneath the windows, once filled with glass painted by Bernard Flower

of which only fragments now remain, are ninety-four of the original 107

statues of saints, placed in richly embellished niches. Beneath these, in

turn, hang the banners of the living Knights Grand Cross of the Order of

the Bath, whose chapel this is. When the Order was founded in 1725, extra

stalls and seats were added to those originally provided. To the stalls

are attached plates recording the names and arms of past Knights of the

Order, while under the seats can be seen finely carved misericords.

The altar, a copy of the sixteenth-century altar incorporates two

of the original pillars and under its canopy hangs a fifteenth-century

Madonna and Child by Vivarini.

In the centre of the apse, behind the altar, stand the tomb of Henry

YII and Elizabeth of York, protected by a bronze screen. The tomb was the

work of Torrigiani and the effigies of the king and queen are finely

executed in gilt bronze.

In later years many more royal burials took place in the chapel. Mary

I, her half-sister Elizabeth I and half-brother Edward YI all lie here The

Latin inscription on thetomb - on which only Elizabeth Ist effigy rests -

reads: «Consorts both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters,

Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one Resurrection».

In the south asle lies Mary Queen of Scots, mother of James Yi and I,

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