After the Norman Invasion of England, William The Conquerer had a fortress built atop a hill near the River Thames, it became known as Windsor Castle and would continue to house monarchs and royals up to present day. This post takes a look inside Windsor Castle, exploring the devastating fire of 1992:
Most recently the preferred official residence of Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle has been at the heart of royal life for centuries. First as a defensive fortress in the 11th century, then a residence and later a centre for royal work and entertaining. Today, parts of the castle are open to the public; the state rooms and royal chapel, but the majority of the estate is private and unseen outside the family and household staff. These areas include The Queen’s private apartments, where Her Majesty spent most weekends for 70 years.
Over the centuries, the castle has undergone several renovations, extensions and expansions, with the last largest construction taking place in the 19th century when the Upper Ward was built. The Upper Ward takes up the entire south-east section of the castle and would go on to provide private lodgings for the monarch and consort, away from the State Apartments (their former lodgings), which would largely be used, in the future, by foreign heads of state during visits. For the proceeding hundred and fifty years changes to the castle were largely decorative, overseen by, and at the personal tastes of, the reigning monarch of the day. The most recent changes to the castle took place in the 1990s.
In the late morning of 20th November 1992, a spotlight in The Queen’s Private Chapel (pictured above) set fire to a curtain. Though alarms went off in the castle’s fire brigade Watch Room, the fire quickly spread to the State Apartments, with fire fighters arriving nearly half an hour after the fire began. In 17 minutes the fire had engulfed the chapel and was creeping through Saint George’s Hall (pictured below) and the Crimson Room (feature image). Staff, builders working on site, and Prince Andrew, attempted to save the historic furniture and art works from the threatened rooms.
Within an hour, over 200 fire-fighters from the surrounding counties had arrived to battle the blaze, which had engulfed the Crimson Room, was ripping through the Green Drawing Room, the State Dining Room, and Grand Reception Room, and the apartments’ roof had collapsed. After 15 hours of intensive fire-fighting, the fire was finally out, leaving devastation in its wake. The floors of Brunswick Tower had collapsed, as had the roof of St George’s Hall, the Private Chapel was completed gutted, as was the Crimson Room, the State Dining Room, the Grand Reception Room, the Holbein Room, the Stuart Room and the Octagon Dining Room.
In all, 100 rooms had been touched by the fire, even the Great Kitchen suffered devastation, with its medieval timber being lost to the fire. Painter Alexander Cresswell was tasked with making records of the fire damage in a set of watercolour paintings, which clearly illustrate the devastation. Cresswell then had the honour of painting the rooms after their £36.5 million restoration in 1999.
Today, many of the same State Apartment rooms that had been destroyed by the fire are open to the public, looking as if nothing had ever happened, with minor changes to rooms such as St George’s Hall, Stuart Room and Holbein Room. It was decided, however, that the private chapel and some private, non-historic, rooms would undergo a modern redesign.
See more of Windsor Castle at the royal collection trust’s website, or by viewing previous posts such as The Queen’s Private Apartments at Windsor Castle, or take a look at nearby royal residences in Windsor Park, such as Frogmore House, Adelaide Cottage or Fort Belvedere. Alternatively, view royal residences across the country by browsing the ‘royalty‘ tag. View more Windsor Castle interiors in a future post.
image credits: royal collection trust