I ignore the man on the intercom this morning. After breakfast, we get a relatively late start to Waterloo station where we catch the train for Windsor.
From the train, I get a glimpse of the castle; solid and imposing against the gray sky. It is rainy and somewhat chillier than yesterday.
There are no lines and we walk right in to see Queen Mary’s doll house. It is fantastic. The doll house has a miniature Rolls Royce that works using real petrol; tiny books in the library with complete stories written and donated by their famous authors (Kipling, Barrie, Conan Doyle); lighted electric chandeliers, running water, real wine in miniature bottles in the wine cellar, hand-woven Irish lace linen in the closets, and so much more―tiny portraits, porcelain, and working clocks and pianos. The artists and craftsmen who built it intended it to represent British life in the 20s, albeit upper-crust British life certainly:
It is built to outlast us all. To carry on into the future and a different world this pattern of our own. It is a serious attempt to express our age and to show forth in dwarf proportions the limbs of our present world.
A.C. Benson, The Book of the Queen’s Dolls’ House, 1924
In the next room to the doll house are two child’s dolls given to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret (the current Queen and her younger sister) from the people of France in 1938 while they were there on a state visit as young girls. They are big dolls and remind me of the Nancy Nurse doll of my childhood. But these dolls are decked out in the finest of French haute couture; designer dresses, mink stoles, and even Cartier necklaces of coral beads.
We make our way to the State Apartments, which are no less ornate than Buckingham and Kensington palaces. King Charles renovated the State Apartments to try and equal those of the Palace of Versailles in France. They look it, all guilt and crystal. We pass through the Throne Room, then the King’s Bed Chamber, the King’s Dressing Room, the King’s Closet and the King’s Dining Room, then an equal number of rooms called, the Queen’s Suite. There are so many rooms, it is mind numbing.
Some of the world’s greatest masterpieces hang on the walls: Van Dyke, Rembrandt, Michelangelo. I see Holbein’s famous portrait of a heavy-jowled Henry VIII; the one you see in all the history books―so interesting to me because it is contemporary and, allowing for a little artistic flattery, should be close to what the tyrannical king really looked like. The paintings all come from the Royal Collection. It is said that the Queen has the is the largest private art collection in the world—more than 1 million objects.
Lisa asks friendly questions and chats with a few of the guards along the way. One is most appreciative; he says it’s a long day when there aren’t many visitors. He is in the Waterloo Room, constructed from what was once a courtyard, it commemorates Napoleon’s defeat. He points out the revolving chandelier—at least it looks like it is revolving. There is a fan inside that moves from the force of the hot air from the heat of the bulbs. It gives the illusion of sparkling candlelight. He also tells us about the carpet created to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. It weighs two tons and is the single, largest piece of carpet in the world. He says it took a lot of manpower to roll it up and carry it out during the fire. I remember seeing a picture of that rug being carried out of the burning castle in 1992.
On a bleak, cold, November night, the worst imaginable thing happened. Windsor Castle burned. As it happened, Prince Andrew was staying here and his efficient organizing of staff and townspeople to carry out irreplaceable paintings, artwork, and furniture saved most of it. I remember seeing pictures of the Queen, the hood of her Macintosh pulled over her head, miserably surveying the blaze’s destruction of her home. It wasn’t a complete lost, but the damage was extensive—the fire destroyed 115 rooms; about one-fifth of the castle. It topped off what the Queen called her “annus horribulus” that followed the separations of both her oldest sons and her daughter, Princess Anne’s, divorce that year.
We pass through St. George’s Hall that was destroyed by the fire along with the Octagonal Dining Room. One of the guards tells us how the dining room was part of the five-story Brunswick tower, which when the fire reached it, created an inferno, with flames leaping 50 feet into the night sky. All five floors collapsed one on top of each other in a great whoosh.
The fire-damaged rooms have all been restored now, but rather than the gold-leaf opulence of their previous form, the new rooms are carved from mushroom-colored English oak. In the octagonal-shaped Lantern Lobby, which was once Queen Victoria’s private chapel, oak pillars buttress a vaulted ceiling designed to look like a lily, with a skylight at the top reminiscent of Rome’s ocular Pantheon. Builders completed its restoration on the 50th anniversary of the Queen and Prince Phillip’s wedding. A plaque commemorates the fact.
In the next room, the guard tells us about the Christmas dance that was here on Monday night. I asked if the Queen was here. She was, along with Prince Phillip and Prince Charles. Now I know why the Union Jack, not the Royal Standard, was flying at Buckingham Palace on the night I arrived in London. The Queen was here at Windsor. He tells us how each member of the Royal Household gets a money limit to spend and they pick out their own gifts. The head of household orders the gifts and the Queen presents them to each person. The Queen likes them to be gifts, not vouchers, and they are never wrapped so she can see what she is giving. He says the staff all lines up when she enters. She walks along and speaks to whomever she pleases. No, she didn’t speak to him this year, but she spoke to his wife.
Lisa’s genuine, probing questions to the guards prompts them to show us one of Semi-State Rooms—the Green Drawing Room—that is not normally on the tour. Here there is also the Crimson Dining Room and the State Dining Room, which the Queen uses for official entertaining including hosting American presidents and other heads of state at glamorous state banquets. They look out over a lovely garden.
Of the rooms destroyed in the fire, the State Dining Room is the only one restored to replicate its previous opulence. Another guard tells about how he worked for 18 hours the night of the fire moving furniture and paintings to get them out before the fire broke through. He says proudly that they only lost two items—a huge painting that had been in the dining room that was too large to get out and a long, low serving cabinet also too big to remove.
The restored State Dining Room is stunning with a replica of the serving cabinet and a wonderful replacement portrait that covers the entire south wall; one of Princess Augusta, Princess of Wales, and her nine children, including the future George III. The Princess’s mourning veil and baby on her lap lets us know that her husband Frederick Prince of Wales is recently deceased. His portrait is in the background of the painting creating a portrait within a portrait.
We exit through St. George’s Hall with all its restored heraldic emblems of the enrobed Knights of the Garter—the highest honor that the Queen can bestow. All of their names are carved into the wood in the order that the monarch knighted them. Queen Elizabeth’s knights include: Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Princess Margaret, Prince Charles, and Princess Anne, among others.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
We walk through St. George’s chapel and peer at the Albert memorial chapel. Although Albert is buried at Frogmore with Queen Victoria, the church has a small chapel dedicated to him that contain the sarcophaguses of Leopold, Queen Victoria’s youngest son, and Prince Albert Victor (Eddy), the eldest son of Edward VII who died at age 28 making way for Prince George who would become George V, the current Queen’s grandfather.
We also see a large, white, marble sculpture of draped, weeping angels, that is Princess Charlotte’s 1817 memorial. Princess Charlotte, the beloved heir to the throne and only child of King George IV, was the Princess Diana of her day. When she died following the stillborn birth of her baby, England’s monarchy was left with no heir. All of King George III’s aging, disreputable sons dumped their long-time mistresses and scrambled to contract lawful marriages and produce legitimate children. The winner was Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son, who married a German princess and whose baby daughter became Queen Victoria.
We have a very late fish and chips lunch at a pub across the street from the castle. We hurry to finish so we can catch the 15:53 PM train back to London. We make it with four minutes to spare.
I feel sorry for a young man on the train who does not have a ticket. The conductor reads him the riot act, takes his name and phone number, and calls his parents. I think he will have to pay a fine. I had not yet seen anyone caught without a ticket. It is not pretty.
We rest a while and head out to dinner about 7:30 PM. Our goal is a Vietnamese restaurant in Leicester Square that is in my guidebook. We get there but the restaurant is no longer there. We walk a few blocks and see a Greek restaurant and say, “Why not?” Inside we discover it is more elegant and pricier than we want, but it is delicious. I have the souvlakia (lamb kabob) with risotto and a Greek salad. One waiter says to us, “It’s nice to see two sisters together.” We smile and don’t bother to correct him.
Jody’s UK Memories 
