# Windsor Castle audio guide, five stops, free.

The oldest and largest occupied castle in the world, begun around 1070 on a chalk bluff above the Thames and home to forty monarchs since. Five of its places play right here; for the rest, point Chiaro's camera and ask.

Made by Chiaro. Not affiliated with Windsor Castle. Page: https://chiaro.ai/landmarks/windsor-castle/

Castle Hill, outside the walls, is where our Windsor Castle audio guide begins, and from there its five stops keep to the castle's own one-way route, up to the State Apartments and back down past the chapel. It is entirely self-guided: play the first below the Henry VIII Gate, before you reach the Admission Centre. The second waits in the Middle Ward below the Round Tower's mound, with the Norman Gate beside it; the third inside the State Apartments at the State Entrance, looking south down the Long Walk; the fourth upstairs in the Waterloo Chamber; and the last in the Lower Ward, in front of Saint George's Chapel, a short way above the exit. Played end to end, the stops last about ten minutes. The walking is mostly uphill at first: Royal Collection Trust reckons ten minutes from the Admission Centre to the State Apartments, and suggests an hour and a half to two hours for the whole visit.

The days, prices and route on this page were taken from Royal Collection Trust's own pages at rct.uk and its visitor map on 27 September 2026; the history was checked against a second reference, with every claim filed next to the sentence that supports it. Windsor is a working palace, so a State occasion can take whole rooms, or the entire castle, off the route with little warning. Where a warden contradicts us on the day, the warden wins; drop us a note and we will bring this page into line.

## The stops

### 1. The Henry VIII Gate, from Castle Hill

Rebuilt for Henry VIII about 1511 on the site of Henry III's gatehouse; the Lower Ward's walls and towers either side rebuilt by Anthony Salvin (1799–1881) and Edward Blore (1787–1879) for Queen Victoria · Lower Ward walls and gatehouse in stone 1224–1230; the present gate about 1511; Victorian rebuilding of the Lower Ward's towers · Stone gatehouse between two octagonal towers, in the curtain wall of the Lower Ward; the castle grounds behind it cover 13 acres (5.3 hectares), on a chalk bluff rising 100 feet (30 metres) above the Thames · Castle Hill, the public street outside the walls, below the Henry VIII Gate at the bottom of the Lower Ward. The Admission Centre, where visitors go in, is further up Castle Hill; RCT's own map marks the visitor exit beside this gate

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/windsor-castle/en/henry-viii-gate-castle-hill.mp3?v=1010668 (126 s)

Look for:
- The carved stone panel over the arch: Henry the Eighth's coat of arms, with the pomegranate of Granada beside it, the emblem of Katherine of Aragon, his first wife.
- The two eight-sided towers either side of the gate, rebuilt for Henry around 1511 on the line of Henry the Third's stone walls of 1224 to 1230.
- Over the wall to the right, the top of the Round Tower on its mound in the middle of the castle, which is the next stop.

Look up at the gatehouse at the bottom of the hill, the one with two thick eight-sided towers and a pointed arch between them. You are not going in through it. The Admission Centre is further up Castle Hill, and this is the way you will come out, at the very end of the walk, after Saint George's Chapel. So take a proper look now, while you are still outside the walls.

Over the arch, in the middle of the wall, is a carved stone panel. That is Henry the Eighth's coat of arms. He rebuilt this gate around 1511, barely two years into his reign, and the panel carries a second badge beside his own: the pomegranate of Granada, the emblem of his first wife, Katherine of Aragon. In June 1522 he entertained Katherine's nephew, the Emperor Charles the Fifth, here with hunting and feasting, and sent him away with the Treaty of Windsor: a joint war against France, and a promise that Charles would marry Henry's daughter Mary. The treaty was broken in 1525. The pomegranate is still up there.

The gate sits in a much older line. Henry the Third rebuilt the walls of this lower part of the castle in stone between 1224 and 1230, with a gatehouse on this very spot and three new towers along the circuit. He had reason to. In 1216 the castle had been besieged by baronial and French troops under the Count of Nevers, and King John's constable, Engelard de Cigogné, held it. It had already been besieged once, two years before.

And the site is older still. William the Conqueror chose this chalk bluff, a hundred feet above the Thames, on the edge of a Saxon hunting ground, and began building around 1070. It was one of a ring of castles round London, each about a day's march, twenty miles, from the City and from the next, and this one guarded the western approach.

Now the surprise. A good deal of what you see along this wall is younger than it looks. Under Queen Victoria the architects Anthony Salvin and Edward Blore rebuilt the Garter, Curfew and Salisbury towers and the Military Knights' houses inside the wall, so much of this medieval skyline is a Victorian reading of one.

Over the wall to the right you can see the top of the Round Tower on its mound, in the middle of the castle, and that is where you are heading. Monarchs have used Windsor since Henry the First, early in the twelfth century, which makes it the longest-occupied palace in Europe, and Royal Collection Trust counts forty of them who have called it home.

### 2. The Round Tower and the Norman Gate

Motte raised for William the Conqueror; stone keep built under Henry II; heightened for George IV by Jeffry Wyatville (1766–1840). The Norman Gate built for Edward III, its exterior redesigned by Wyatville · Motte from about 1070; keep rebuilt in stone about 1170; heightened 1828–1840; Norman Gate 14th century · Stone keep on a chalk motte 50 feet (15 metres) high, extended upwards by 30 feet (9.1 metres) in the early 19th century; the Norman Gate a vaulted gatehouse with a portcullis and murder holes · Middle Ward, on the visitor route from St George's Gate along the Moat Road towards the North Terrace, below the Round Tower's mound; the Norman Gate stands beside the tower on the way towards the Upper Ward

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/windsor-castle/en/round-tower-and-norman-gate.mp3?v=1029894 (129 s)

Look for:
- The band of stone round the drum that marks the tower's original height. Everything above it is George the Fourth's heightening, some nine metres, done purely for looks.
- The flattened side. The tower is D-shaped, not round, because its south side was rebuilt that way under Henry the Third after a bombardment.
- The mound itself, fifteen metres of chalk dug out of the ditch around it, and underpinned after fresh subsidence was found in 1988.
- The Norman Gate beside the tower, with round towers either side of its arch: fourteenth-century work for Edward the Third, built with a portcullis and murder holes.

You are inside now, on the path that curls round the foot of the mound, and the tower on top of it is the oldest idea in the castle. The mound came first. It is fifteen metres of chalk, dug out of the ditch around it, and William the Conqueror's builders put a wooden keep on the top.

It did not stay put. Early in the twelfth century the southern side of the mound slumped by more than two metres. Timber piles were driven in to hold it, and the wooden keep was replaced in stone. Henry the Second rebuilt it again, and Royal Collection Trust dates the Round Tower you are looking at to 1170. The ground has never entirely settled: fresh subsidence was found in 1988, bad enough to threaten the tower, and the mound had to be underpinned.

Now look at the shape, because the name is wrong. The Round Tower is not round. Its south side was badly damaged when it was bombarded early in the thirteenth century, and under Henry the Third it was repaired into a D-shape, which made it stronger.

Then look for a line. There is a band of stone running round the drum that marks where the tower used to stop, and everything above it belongs to George the Fourth. His architect Jeffry Wyatville raised the tower by thirty feet, about nine metres, to give the castle a more imposing height and silhouette, and Royal Collection Trust says frankly that it was done purely to look impressive. It worked, and not everyone forgives it: the archaeologist Tim Tatton-Brown has called the new height a mutilation of the medieval tower. For a century and a half the extension was hollow. Between 1991 and 1993 a room was finally built in the empty space, to give the Royal Archives more room.

Two details from the tower's middle years. The earliest weight-driven mechanical clock in England was installed in it for Edward the Third in 1354, and Edward lived up there in temporary rooms while his new palace was going up next door.

Before you move on, find the Norman Gate beside the tower, on your way towards the Upper Ward: two round towers with an arch between them. The name is a mistake too. It is Edward the Third's work, fourteenth century, part of his rebuilding of the palace, and it was built to be defended: a portcullis that could be lowered to seal it, and murder holes overhead, through which guards could pour boiling water or hot sand on anyone below. Since 1558 it has been the home of the Constable and Governor, who represents the monarch when the monarch is away.

### 3. The State Entrance, and the view down the Long Walk

Entrance hall extended to the State Entrance by Jeffry Wyatville (1766–1840) for George IV; closed off by Anthony Salvin (1799–1881) for Queen Victoria in 1866 and reopened by Royal Collection Trust; the Long Walk laid out for Charles II · Inner Hall and State Entrance 1820s; closed off 1866; reopened 2020. Long Walk planted from the 1680s, replanted after 1945 · The view south across the Quadrangle, through the George IV Gateway, down the Long Walk: a double avenue of trees 2.65 miles (4.26 km) long and 240 feet (73 metres) wide · Upper Ward, ground floor of the State Apartments: from the North Terrace entrance the route runs through the Inner Hall and down to the State Entrance, on the Quadrangle side, facing south

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/windsor-castle/en/state-entrance-long-walk.mp3?v=973469 (122 s)

Look for:
- Straight ahead, south across the Quadrangle, the Long Walk: two rows of trees on each side, 2.65 miles of avenue from the castle to Snow Hill, laid out for Charles the Second.
- The gateway in the far range on the same line, named for George the Fourth, who laid the foundation stone of his remodelling there on the twelfth of August 1824.
- Overhead in the Inner Hall, Francis Bernasconi's plaster ceiling bosses, found under layers of paint when the hall was opened up again in 2020.

You have come in off the North Terrace and through the Inner Hall to the State Entrance, and the reason the route brings you here is straight ahead. Look south, across the Quadrangle, through the gateway in the far range, and keep going: that line of trees running away into the distance is the Long Walk.

It is two point six five miles long and two hundred and forty feet wide, a double avenue from the castle to Snow Hill. Charles the Second laid it out after the Restoration, and the planting was finished under William of Orange in the 1680s, in double rows of elms. The elms lasted until the Second World War; Dutch elm disease led to a great replanting after 1945, with chestnut and plane trees alternating. At the far end, on Snow Hill, stands the Copper Horse, a statue of George the Third put up in 1829, on a base designed by Jeffry Wyatville, the architect of almost everything you have seen since the gate. Snow Hill is also said to be where Henry the Eighth waited to hear that Anne Boleyn had been executed.

This is the door that Heads of State and the monarch's official guests use, and visitors only started coming this way in 2020. George the Fourth and Wyatville wanted an entrance hall running the full depth of the building, from the North Terrace down to this door, so you could see straight through the ground floor. They demolished George the Third's Grand Stair to make room for it. George the Fourth laid the foundation stone of the whole remodelling himself, on the twelfth of August 1824, at what became the George the Fourth Gateway, across the Quadrangle, on the line of your view.

Queen Victoria used the hall for almost thirty years. Then in 1866 she had her architect Anthony Salvin close it off and build a smaller entrance hall running east to west, and the Inner Hall behind you turned into a storeroom. It stayed shut, and partly a display space from 1965, until the opening-up was finished in 2020, the way George the Fourth had meant it.

Turn round and look up before you move on. When restorers stripped away layers of paint from the Inner Hall ceiling, they found the bosses modelled by Francis Bernasconi, the most fashionable plasterer of the Regency. The walls around you are older than any of it. This part of the castle goes back to Edward the Third in the middle of the fourteenth century, and his Great Undercroft, on this same floor, still survives: fifty-nine metres long, in thirteen bays.

### 4. The Waterloo Chamber

Designed by Jeffry Wyatville (1766–1840) for George IV; portraits of the allied leaders by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), with later additions by Sir David Wilkie and others · Room 1830–1831; Lawrence's portraits painted from 1814 to the 1820s · A top-lit hall lined with carved panelling and portraits; the largest, Lawrence's full-length of the Duke of Wellington, is 317.1 × 225.65 cm · State Apartments, first floor: on the route through the Grand Vestibule and the Waterloo Chamber, after the Grand Staircase

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/windsor-castle/en/waterloo-chamber.mp3?v=1037835 (130 s)

Look for:
- Sir Thomas Lawrence's portraits of the allied leaders who defeated Napoleon, still hung together round the room George the Fourth built for them.
- The Duke of Wellington in the largest canvas, 317.1 by 225.65 centimetres.
- The carved panelling below the portraits and the long lantern that lights the room from above.

Up the Grand Staircase, through the Grand Vestibule, and the room opens out: long, high, lit from above, and lined with faces. This is the Waterloo Chamber, built in 1830 and 1831 to celebrate one thing, the defeat of Napoleon.

George the Fourth planned it as a set of portraits before it was a room. He commissioned Sir Thomas Lawrence to paint every major figure who had come together to beat Napoleon, and Napoleon's escape from Elba put the whole scheme on hold. In September 1818 Lawrence finally went abroad, first to Aachen, then to Vienna, and in May 1819 on to Rome for Pope Pius the Seventh and Cardinal Consalvi. Look along the walls and you are looking at that journey: Tsar Alexander the First, the Emperor Francis the First of Austria, King Frederick William the Third of Prussia, Prince Schwarzenberg, the Pope, Charles the Tenth of France, and, biggest of all, the Duke of Wellington, on a canvas more than three metres tall. Lawrence never saw them hung here. He died suddenly on the seventh of January 1830, and Jeffry Wyatville finished the room around them.

The room has had stranger nights. In 1940 the Lawrences came out of their frames for safekeeping from the air raids, and in their place went pantomime pictures painted on wallpaper by a teenage evacuee art student, Claude Whatham. The princesses Elizabeth and Margaret wanted a backdrop for their wartime pantomimes, and at their Aladdin in 1943 the future Prince Philip, on leave from the Royal Navy, was in the audience. Friends said afterwards that this was where the romance took hold. In 2004 the portraits came down again, for a performance of Les Misérables at a state event with President Jacques Chirac marking a hundred years of the Entente Cordiale. The press noticed the irony, and for that one night the room was renamed the Music Room.

It is still a working room. As well as sitting on the main visitor route, it is where Investitures are held, the ceremonies at which members of the public receive their honours.

Further along, the route crosses the part of the castle that burned. On the twentieth of November 1992 a faulty spotlight set fire to a curtain in Queen Victoria's Private Chapel. The fire spread into Saint George's Hall, burned for fifteen hours and destroyed a hundred and fifteen rooms, nine of them State Rooms. Only two works of art were lost: a rosewood sideboard, and one very large painting by Sir William Beechey that could not be taken down in time. The Lantern Lobby you will walk through stands where that chapel was.

### 5. St George's Chapel, from the Lower Ward

Begun for Edward IV under Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, and the master mason Henry Janyns; continued for Henry VII under Sir Reginald Bray and completed under Henry VIII; restored 1920–1930 under Sir Harold Brakspear, when the Royal Beasts were recarved · 1475–1528; nave vault 1503–1506; the Royal Beasts on the pinnacles 1925 · Perpendicular Gothic stone chapel carrying 76 heraldic beasts on its pinnacles; at its east end Henry III's Lady Chapel, 70 feet (21 metres) long, now the Albert Memorial Chapel · Lower Ward, north side, seen from the lawn and path in front of its south side on the route down from the Upper Ward; the exit is at the bottom of the Lower Ward by the Henry VIII Gate

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/windsor-castle/en/st-georges-chapel.mp3?v=1020699 (128 s)

Look for:
- The Royal Beasts on the pinnacles, seventy-six of them in fourteen kinds, carved in 1925 to replace the originals Christopher Wren had taken down in 1682.
- The great windows between the buttresses, bay after bay along the south side: the chapel was built from 1475 to 1528.
- At the east end, on your right, Henry the Third's Lady Chapel, turned into the Albert Memorial Chapel between 1863 and 1873.
- To your left, at the west end of the Lower Ward, the curved brick and timber Horseshoe Cloister of 1480, built for the chapel's clergy.

Stand on the path in front of the chapel's south side and let your eye run along the roofline first. The pinnacles carry creatures: a lion, a red dragon, a panther, a unicorn, a falcon, a yale, seventy-six of them in all, of fourteen different heraldic animals. They are younger than they look. The originals were carved in soft Reigate stone, and in 1682 Christopher Wren advised taking them down. The pinnacles went without them for well over two centuries, until a ten-year restoration under Sir Harold Brakspear, begun in 1920, put new ones up in 1925. One of the carvers was the Anglo-Congolese sculptor Mahomet Thomas Phillips, who made a falcon and a unicorn in 1923.

The building underneath is the real thing. Edward the Fourth began it in 1475 and pulled down older buildings to make room, partly to show that his new dynasty was here to stay, and perhaps to outdo the chapel Henry the Sixth had ordered across the river at Eton. The work was directed by Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, and a master mason called Henry Janyns. It went on under Henry the Seventh, whose stone vault over the nave went up between 1503 and 1506, and it was finished in Henry the Eighth's reign, in 1528. The great windows between the buttresses, bay after bay, are Perpendicular Gothic at full stretch.

This is the chapel of the Order of the Garter, which Edward the Third founded in 1348, and in the choir some eight hundred enamelled brass plates record its members over six centuries. It is also a royal burial place. Eleven monarchs lie here, among them Henry the Eighth, Charles the First, George the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth the Second. Charles the First's body was carried to Windsor through a snowstorm after his execution in January 1649 and put in the vault without ceremony. Henry the Eighth never got the tomb he planned. Its bronze was stripped and sold in the Civil War, and its marble tomb chest ended up as part of Admiral Lord Nelson's monument in Saint Paul's Cathedral.

Look to your right, at the east end: that is Henry the Third's Lady Chapel, turned into the Albert Memorial Chapel between 1863 and 1873. And behind the high altar lies the man who made the castle look the way it does. Jeffry Wyatville was buried here in February 1840, after sixteen years of remaking Windsor.

When you are ready, the exit is at the bottom of the Lower Ward, beside the Henry the Eighth Gate you looked at from Castle Hill. You leave under Katherine of Aragon's pomegranate.

## Before you go

Windsor Castle, High Street, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1NJ. Visitors go in at the Admission Centre on Castle Hill, where bags go through airport-style security, and come out at the bottom of the Lower Ward beside the Henry VIII Gate. The castle has no visitor car park; Royal Collection Trust points drivers to the public car parks in the town centre.

Windsor & Eton Central, the terminus of Great Western Railway's branch from Slough, is on Thames Street almost opposite Castle Hill. Windsor & Eton Riverside, 400 metres away, is the end of South Western Railway's line from London Waterloo via Staines, with a steep climb up to the castle. Royal Collection Trust puts both stations under ten minutes on foot. Windsor Express buses run into the town centre, route 702 from near Victoria Station in London and route 703 from Heathrow Terminal 5.

- The castle is closed every Tuesday and Wednesday and opens Thursday to Monday; in 2026 it also opens on Tuesday 22 and Tuesday 29 December. Royal Collection Trust has announced whole-day closures on Monday 19 October and from Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 December 2026, and the State Apartments can close at short notice for State events, so look at the closures list on rct.uk before you travel.
- Opening time is 10:00 all year. From 1 March to 31 October the last admission is 16:00 and the castle closes at 17:15; from 1 November to 28 February, last admission is 15:00 and closing is 16:15. The entrance to the State Apartments shuts 30 minutes after last admission, so leave yourself time for the ten-minute climb to it once you are through the gate.
- A standard adult ticket for 2026 is £32.00 booked in advance and £36.00 on the day; ages 18 to 24 pay £21.00 or £24.00, ages 5 to 17 £16.00 or £18.00, and children under 5 are admitted free. It covers every stop on this page, and it can be converted into a 1-Year Pass for free re-admission. The Round Tower climb and the Great Kitchen are separate, dearer tour tickets sold for part of the year.
- Saint George's Chapel is open to visitors on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with last entry at 16:00, and on Sunday for worship only; the last stop on this page is played outside it and works any day the castle is open. Cameras stay away inside the State Apartments and the chapel, where no photos or filming are allowed, though snapping away is encouraged out in the precincts.

The castle's own guide costs nothing. Royal Collection Trust gives out a multimedia guide at the start of the visit, introduced by the King, which covers the Castle Precincts, the State Apartments and Saint George's Chapel in English, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Spanish, and as a British Sign Language video with subtitles; young visitors from 7 to 11 get their own edition, blind and partially sighted visitors can ask for an audio-descriptive tour, and you may plug in your own wired headphones. Our five stops sit alongside it: the first plays on Castle Hill before any handset is handed out, and every script is printed in full under its player.

Official site: https://www.rct.uk/visit/windsor-castle

## Questions

**Is there a free Windsor Castle audio guide?**

Yes, more than one. Royal Collection Trust's own multimedia guide is free, handed out at the start of the visit in nine spoken languages and British Sign Language. Ours costs nothing either: five stops that stream in any phone browser, beginning out on Castle Hill. Anything else you want explained along the route, from a portrait to a carved beast on the chapel roof, Chiaro will talk you through from a photo.

**Can I listen to the Windsor Castle audio guide without a ticket?**

The first stop, yes: it plays on Castle Hill, the public street below the Henry VIII Gate, before you reach the Admission Centre. The other four, the Round Tower and Norman Gate, the State Entrance, the Waterloo Chamber and Saint George's Chapel, are inside and all on the standard admission ticket. Nothing extra needs booking.

**How much is the official Windsor Castle audio guide?**

Nothing. The multimedia guide is included with admission and you pick up a handset at the start of your visit; it is introduced by the King and runs through the precincts, the State Apartments and the chapel. There is a children's edition for ages 7 to 11, and blind and partially sighted visitors can ask for an audio-descriptive tour.

**Is Windsor Castle open on Tuesdays?**

No. The castle closes to visitors every Tuesday and Wednesday and opens Thursday to Monday, with two exceptions in 2026, when it opens on Tuesday 22 and Tuesday 29 December. It also shuts on some announced days, among them Monday 19 October and 24 to 26 December 2026, and Saint George's Chapel takes visitors on four days a week: Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

**Which end of Castle Hill does the walk start from?**

The lower end, on the pavement below the Henry VIII Gate at the bottom of the Lower Ward. You go in further up the hill at the Admission Centre, climb past the Round Tower to the North Terrace and the State Apartments, then come down to Saint George's Chapel and leave by that same gate. The route is one-way throughout.

**How long does Windsor Castle take?**

Royal Collection Trust suggests between an hour and a half and two hours. The walk from the Admission Centre to the State Apartments alone takes about ten minutes, mostly uphill, and the five stops here add roughly ten minutes of listening.

## Continue in the app

Point Chiaro at anything at Windsor Castle.

Five stops leave most of a thousand-year castle unexplained. A piece of armour in the Grand Vestibule, one of Antonio Verrio's painted ceilings, a Van Dyck, a room of Queen Mary's Dolls' House: take a picture with Chiaro and hear who made the thing, who paid for it and what became of it, with follow-up questions welcome from the North Terrace to the exit gate.

Download Chiaro: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6745618830?pt=127817940&ct=windsor-castle-md&mt=8