TOPOGRAPHY
THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF WINDSOR
Windsores, Vuindesor (xi cent.); Nova Windleshora (xii cent.); Windeshores, Windesorum, Windesores (xiii cent.); Windsoure, Windsore (xiv–xviicent.).
The parish of Windsor, more properly called NewWindsor, has an area of 2,559 acres, of which 59 arecovered by water. The borough of Windsor includesthe whole parish of New Windsor together with partof the parish of Clewer. In 1894 the part ofClewer within the borough was formed into the civilparish of Clewer Within, the remainder being knownas Clewer Without. Dedworth, a hamlet of NewWindsor, was transferred to Clewer in 1878. Windsor Castle was extra-parochial until 1886, when theLower Ward was included, for purposes of rating,within the borough of New Windsor. The rest ofthe castle, being in the occupation of the Crown, isnot rateable.
The road from Slough and Eton enters the townon the north, crossing the Thames by a bridge builtin 1823, on the site of the earliest bridge. Theroad from Datchet, which enters the town on thenorth-east, crosses the river by the Victoria Bridge,of one arch, built in 1850, about which time therewas a rearrangement of the roads crossing the HomePark. (fn. 1)
The plan of the town is irregular, the oldest partlying in a comparatively small area between thewestern front of the castle and the river, and westand south of the castle. The centre of this olderportion is at the crossing of Thames Street and HighStreet with Peascod Street and Castle Hill, close towhich point, in the High Street, are the parishchurch of St. John Baptist, approached by a flightof stone steps, the town hall, and the market-place. Sheet Street bounded mediaeval Windsorin one direction and Windsor Bridge on the other. (fn. 2) The extension of the residential portion of the townto the west began in the early part of the 19thcentury, and the further expansions to the north-west towards Clewer, and south-west towards Spital,are later.
One of the oldest streets of the town is ThamesStreet, from which a flight of steps, known as theHundred Steps, leads into the Lower Ward. Thehouses in Thames Street built on the site of theformer castle ditch were removed in 1852. Themajority of the shops here and in High Street andPeascod Street have modern shop fronts inserted on theground floor, but the superstructures of many are ofthe 18th century or even earlier. None, however,are of any great architectural interest. Thames Streetis continued as High Street, which contains theWhite Hart Hotel, on the site of the famous GarterInn, and leads upward to the Castle Hill, the highestpoint of the town. High Street is continued in thesouth-westerly direction as Park Street, formerlyPound Street, which leads into the Home Park byCambridge Lodge. Park Street has probably alteredvery little since the close of the 18th century. Thehouses are principally of red brick with tiled roofsand some have Doric pilasters on either side of theentrance doorways supporting entablatures.
Peascod Street runs at right angles into HighStreet, opposite Castle Hill. The Duke's Head Inn,in this street, took its name from the house occupiedby George Villiers Duke of Buckingham. The housesin Church Street, which is opposite the Henry VIIIGateway of the castle, are almost without exceptionof the latter part of the 17th or early 18th century.In the middle of the east side of the street stand twofine late 17th-century red brick houses treated in onedesign with tiled roofs. At either end are pilastereddoorways, above which, supported on carved brackets,are projecting bays carried up the full height of thebuilding and roofed with hipped roofs, while at thewall-head level is a wooden modillion cornice. On thesouth side of this building is the King's Head Museum,a small house of about the same date, and at the southcorner of the street stands the parish room, a two-storied 18th-century building with hipped dormersin the roof. The walls are rough-casted and theroof is tiled; the cornice is of wood and has carvedmodillions. At the opposite corner of the street is alarge three-storied red brick building of 18th-centurydate; on the north side of this is a house of similardesign, the walls of which are stuccoed. Higher upthe street, on the west side, there stands a four-story red brick house probably of early 18th-centurydate.
Most of the old buildings in High Street, whichhad tiled roofs and good interiors, and the quaintshuttered shops in Peascod Street, have been pulleddown, but there are still a few houses in High Streetand Thames Street which contain oak panelling andfine staircases. The town hall, which was begunfrom the designs of Sir Thomas Fitz in 1687, andcompleted after his death by Sir Christopher Wren,is a building of brick and stone with an open areabeneath it, and a later addition on the east of brickwith stucco dressings containing the council chamberand parlour. The three exposed elevations of thehall are divided into two stages by a stone entablaturesupported at the angles by rusticated piers and on thewest by plain Doric columns; on the north and souththe entablature is supported by elliptical archesspringing from smaller Doric columns. The intercolumniations, which were originally open, are nowfilled with modern glazing. The upper stage, containing the hall, is of brick with stone quoins and acrowning cornice, the end walls on the north andsouth being finished with pediments following thepitch of the roof. Six square-headed windows withmoulded stone architraves light the hall on the west,while the north and south walls are each divided intothree bays by small Corinthian pilasters, the side baysbeing occupied by windows like those on the west,but having swags beneath their sills, and the centrebay by a niche with a semicircular head. The nicheon the north contains a statue of Queen Anne withthe inscription:
'Arte tua, sculptor, non est imitabilis Anna;
Annae vis similem sculpere, sculpe deam
Anno Regni VI. A. S. MDCCVII. S. ChapmanPraetore.'
In the southern niche is a statue of Prince Georgeof Denmark, given by Christopher Wren, the son ofthe architect, in 1713. Within the area under thehall are columns which appear to support the floor,but the beams do not in reality touch them. Theinterior has been very much modernized.
In Church Lane adjoining the north-east corner ofthe churchyard stands an early 18th-century red brickbuilding, the design of which is attributed to Wren.It was formerly the free school, but is now used as amasonic lodge. The house stands on a projectingplinth and is two stories high with a tiled roof. Theelevations are symmetrically designed and have at thewall-head level a moulded brick modillion cornice.The central bays to both north and east elevationsproject slightly, and the cornice to the latter is carriedup in a pointed pediment; the windows have segmental and semicircular heads.
Sheet Street, which appears early in the historyof the town, runs southwards from High Street andis continued as King's Road. It contains the RoyalAlbert Institute, a red brick building with stonedressings opened by Edward VII when Prince ofWales, in 1881.
Standing on the east side of Sheet Street, oppositeVictoria Street, is Hadleigh House. It is an 18th-century building of red brick, roofed with slates, andthree stories high with a basem*nt and attics. Thereis a wooden Ionic portico to the entrance doorway,which is approached by a small flight of stone steps.The house stands back from the roadway behind ahigh brick wall with some fine ornamental entrancegates of wrought-iron.
The names of several other streets which appearearly in the history of Windsor have been changed.Queen's Street was formerly Butcher Row, St. Alban'sStreet was Priest Street. River Street leads fromThames Street down to the river and was formerlycalled Beer Lane. At the foot of Castle Hill standsa bronze statue of Queen Victoria in royal robes, byBoehm, which was unveiled in 1887. The statueis placed on a granite pedestal.
The King Edward VII Hospital, in St. Leonard'sRoad, was opened by his late Majesty in 1909. TheVictoria Barracks, enlarged in 1911, lie south ofVictoria Street, and the Cavalry Barracks are inSt. Leonard's Road. The Windsor almshouses inVictoria Street, founded in 1503, were rebuilt in1862. Chariott's almshouses is a smaller foundation.
The Great Western railway has a station in GeorgeStreet, originally built in 1850, and entirely rebuilt andremodelled with a new royal waiting-room in 1897.This station was the scene of an attempt on the life ofQueen Victoria in 1882. The London and South-Western railway station is in the Datchet Road, andhas a private entrance for the use of the royal family.
The borough contains a good theatre, the TheatreRoyal, built in 1823, and rebuilt, after being burntdown, in 1910. The firsttheatre in Windsor was openedin 1793. (fn. 3)
There is a public recreationground, known as Bachelors'Acre, on the north side ofSheet Street, where a revelwas held formerly every year.Seventy-five acres of land lyingnorth of the castle which werecut off from the rest of theHome Park by the new roadfrom Windsor to Datchetwere, by order of QueenVictoria, thrown open for theuse of the public.
The fairs formerly held inthe town on Easter Tuesdayand on 5 July have now beenabandoned. As early as 1811they were described as 'veryinconsiderable.' (fn. 4) A weeklymarket is, however, held onSaturdays.
The first street to appearon the records is PeascodStreet (Pesecroftestrete) in1308. (fn. 5) Le Frithe, afterwardsFrith Lane, is found in 1321, (fn. 6) and the name Hugh atte Gateof Windsor suggests the existence of a town gate. (fn. 7) Among15th and 16th-century place-names are Shete Strete, Bisshop's Strete, Puket's Lane,Grope cownt Lane, FisheStrete, Prest Strete, Pokatt'sGate, Spitell, tenements calledTawneys, le Whitehorse, theBlack Egyll, the Saracen's hed,the Ram, le Ledenporche, leCrosse Keyes, the George andDeryngs. (fn. 8)
The Home Park, containing 400 acres, is magnificently timbered with elms and oaks; among thelatter was the famous Herne's Oak which fell inAugust 1863, its site being marked by a youngoak planted by Queen Victoria in the same year.The Long Walk, with its avenue of elms, runs southwards from the George IV gateway of the castlethrough the park in a straight line for 3 miles.At the end of the Long Walk is the bronzeequestrian statue of George III in Roman dress,by Westmacott, which stands on a granite pedestal26 ft. high at the top of an elevation known as SnowHill.
Adelaide Cottage stands in a picturesque dellwithin the Home Park, about half a mile to thesouth-east of the castle. It is a small stuccoed two-storied building in the 'cottage-ornée' style of theearly 19th century. Over the entrance, which is onthe south side, is inscribed A.R. 1831, and on thenorth where the ground rises above the level of theground floor of the southern portion are two largerooms opening on to the garden. The northern ofthe two rooms is a complete octagon, paperedinternally with an interesting trellis-pattern paper,while the southern room is decorated with fittingsfrom the old yacht 'Royal George.' AdelaideLodge, immediately to the south of the cottage, isdesigned in the same manner and serves as agardener's residence. The names of the two houseswere formerly reversed.
Frogmore House, (fn. 9) about three-quarters of a mileto the south of the castle, is a stuccoed buildingconsisting of a plain three-storied central block withlow projecting wings on the north and south connected on the ground floor of the west front by aglazed and painted wooden colonnade of the Tuscanorder. The central block dates from the first half ofthe 18th century and retains some detail of thatperiod in the brick groining of the basem*nt beneathit and the panelling of two of the rooms on theground floor, but on the purchase of the house bythe Crown in 1792 the interior was almost entirelyredecorated by Wyatt, who also added the colonnadeon the west with the portions of the wings immediately adjoining the original building on the northand south. A print of 1794 preserved in the houseshows these works as on the point of completion, butwithout the large rooms at the extreme ends of thewest front, and with the colonnade unglazed. Thewings appear to have been extended to their presentsize between this date and 1819, as the view inPyne's 'Royal Residences' shows the garden frontprecisely as it now exists. The principal entranceis in the centre of the east front and is covered by a'porte cochère' with stone Doric columns and entablature, evidently an addition of the 19th century.The porch admits directly to a well-proportionedstaircase hall with a black and white stone pavement;the stairs have a central and two return flights oneither side, the handrails being supported by delicatelydesigned wrought-iron balustrading, while the first-floor landing over the hall is supported by flutedCorinthian columns of wood with answering pilasters.The equerry's room to the left of the hall and thesmall room adjoining it are lined with oak panellingof the original date of the house. On the west sideof the central block, and entered directly from theentrance hall, is the small dining-room; no featuresof architectural interest remain here, but the ante-chamber or lobby opening out of it on the east has agood late 18th-century ceiling. From this lobby therooms in the south wing, which are planned 'en suite,'are entered. The walls and ceiling of the first of theserooms are decorated with flower-paintings by MaryMoser, R.A., while the large drawing-room adjoiningit is a very complete and charming example of earlyVictorian decoration from the panelled paper on thewalls to the flowered carpet on the floor. The doorcases and mouldings are painted in white and gold,and the room is lighted on the west by a large semicircular bay window, a recess of the same formanswering to it on the east. The suite is completed by the large dining-room, a plain room of noartistic interest. The north wing, which is arrangedin the same manner, contains the library, the yellowdrawing-room, the king's writing-room, lighted onthe west by a bay window corresponding to that of thelarge drawing-room, and the queen's writing-room,or boudoir. The landing at the head of the principalstairs leads by two doors directly into a narrow galleryrunning from back to front in the centre of the firstfloor, the walls of which are painted in the Pompeianmanner; this decoration is probably the work of oneof the daughters of George III, perhaps the PrincessElizabeth, who is known to have decorated two ofthe ground-floor rooms in imitation Japan; the execution is somewhat crude, the swags of the frieze andsome of the smaller figures being merely cut out ofpaper and pasted on. On the west front, leadingout of the gallery on the north, is the bedroom inwhich the duch*ess of Kent died, and on the south asitting-room. These and the remaining rooms onthe upper floors are quite plain and contain nofittings of interest. On the west side of the houseis a large piece of artificial water, skilfully laid out ina winding course, and in the grounds are severalsummer-houses, one of which, designed in the'Gothic taste,' has some wrought detail broughtfrom St. George's Chapel. A little under a quarter ofa mile to the north of the house is Frogmore Cottage,a plain two-storied early 19th-century building.
On the west side of the water, about the samedistance to the west of the house, is the mausoleum ofQueen Victoria and the Prince Consort. The building,which is in the Italian Renaissance manner, was designed by Professor Grüner and consists of a centraldomed octagon, 30 ft. in diameter, with four transepts at the cardinal points, each 16 ft. deep, andconnected with each other by curved aisles or ambulatories encircling the octagon. The walls are of graniteto the sill level of the aisle windows, and of Portlandstone above, the pilasters at the angles of the transepts being entirely of granite. The domed plasterceiling of the central portion is framed with teak andhas a low-pitched pyramidal roof covered, like thoseof the rest of the structure, with Australian copper.The whole building stands upon a paved terracefollowing its outline and is entered by a doorwayin the end wall of the east transept beneath a largetriple-arched porch with polished granite columnsand pilasters, approached from the terrace level byblack marble steps. Both transepts and porch havelow-pitched gables, and the windows, which are allround-headed, are arranged, with the exception ofthose of the aisles, in groups of three. Over theentrance doorway is inscribed:—
'Alberti Principis quod mortale erat | hoc insepulcro deponi voluit | vidua moerens VictoriaRegina A. D. MDCCCLXII | Vale desideratissime!Hic demum conquiescam tecum | tecum in Christoconsurgam.'
The doors themselves are of gun-metal fashionedin panels, and behind them is a well-executed grilleof the same material gilded. Internally the centraloctagon opens to the transepts by four great arches ofSicilian marble springing from an entablature whichis continued round the walls of the transepts andacross the four blank faces of the octagon and issupported beneath the arches and at the angles of thetransepts by Corinthian pilasters with gilt bronzecapitals and bases. The pilasters stand upon pedestals,the mouldings of which are likewise continued roundthe building. The drum of the dome, which is alsooctagonal, rises from an enriched dentil corniceimmediately above the great arches and the intervening pendentives, and is lighted from each face bythree grouped round-headed windows divided bypolished granite shafts with gilt bronze capitals, whilefrom the angles spring the ribs of the dome, the shellof which is arched over the windows. In each of theblank faces of the octagon below the main entablature is a hemispherical-headed niche of marble witha canopy of gilt bronze containing statues of Daniel,by Gustav Kuntz; Isaiah, unsigned; David, by F.Rentsch; and Solomon, by H. B. Baumer; all ofwhite marble. The niches are surrounded by panelsof various coloured marbles with borders of whitemarble, while the pendentives above contain paintingsof the four Evangelists, also inclosed by panels ofcoloured marbles. The drum of the dome is paintedin imitation of marble, and the eight ribs are fashionedas gilded angels, the dome itself being painted withangels and stars on a gold ground. In the centre ofthe marble pavement beneath, standing on a blackmarble step, is the sarcophagus containing the bodiesof Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, a huge massof Cairn-gall granite with their recumbent effigies inwhite marble on the top and four bronze angels at thecorners, the work of Baron Marochetti. The transepts have barrel-vaulted ceilings concentric with thegreat arches enriched with paintings and plaster basreliefs, and are lighted from their end walls by tripletsof round-headed windows above the main entablature.In the west transept is placed a marble altar, andabove it is a large painting on canvas of the Resurrection, while the end walls of the north and southtransepts have similar paintings of the Nativity andthe Crucifixion. In the south transept is the memorialto Princess Alice, Grand duch*ess of Hesse, a marbletable tomb with the recumbent effigies of herself andher child. Small arches of white marble open from theside walls of the transepts into the aisles, and roundthese are painted arabesque panels. In their jambsare niches, all of which originally contained vases ofserpentine, but three of these have been replaced bybusts of Leopold Duke of Albany, the Grand Duke ofHesse, and Prince Henry of Battenberg. The aislesare lighted by round-headed windows with jambspainted in imitation of marble and are covered bybarrel ceilings.
A little distance to the south-east upon an artificialpromontory on the east bank of the water is themausoleum of the duch*ess of Kent, a circular domedbuilding surrounded by a peristyle of polished graniteIonic columns with bronze capitals and bases. Thewhole stands upon a circular terrace approached bybalustraded flights of steps, beneath which is thevault containing the sarcophagus. On the frieze ofthe peristyle is inscribed:—
'Hoc templum pietatis monumentum consecraruntVictoria Britt: regina et Albertus consorseius an. sal.MDCCCLXI Victoriae Mariae Louisae Cantii ducissae matris dilectissimae reliquiis conservandis.'
The doors are of gunmetal backed with oak, andwithin the cell is a white marble statue of Her RoyalHighness, by Theed, standing upon a pavement ofcoloured marbles. The walls are painted with theheraldry of her husband and her ancestors of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld upon a ground of scarlet drapery,and light is obtained from an internal dome of blueglass with yellow stars, itself borrowing light from theeye of the external dome.
The Home Park also contains the royal gardens,dairy and dairy farm and the Prince Consort's HomeFarm and Shaw Farm, model farms established by thePrince Consort and maintained by King Edward VIIand King George V, and also the Queen's aviary,which contains a fine collection of birds. LowerLodge was occupied in the 17th century by the Dukeof St. Albans, being then known as Burford House.It was bought by George III and was later occupiedby members of the royal family. The whole of theHome Park and a small part of Windsor Great Park (fn. 10) lie within the parish.
