Windsor

The first Windsor was Windlesora, mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a riverside settlement about 3 miles downstream, possibly founded in the late 7th century; today it is the village of Old Windsor. By 1070, recognising the strategic importance of the site, William the Conqueror had a timber motte-and-bailey castle built there. By 1110 meetings of the Great Council had moved to the castle, called New Windsor, and during the 12th century the settlement transferred to a planned new town below it, with a parish church, marketplace and burgage plots, while the castle was gradually rebuilt in stone. Windsor received its first charter confirming its royal borough status in 1277.

Edward III's rebuilding of the castle between 1350 and 1368 was the largest secular building project in medieval England, and it brought wealth to the town even as the Black Death struck elsewhere. St George's Chapel was radically redeveloped between 1475 and 1528, and Henry VI founded Eton College across the river in 1440. In the Civil War the castle became a base for the New Model Army, and Charles I was buried in St George's Chapel without ceremony after his execution in 1649. The present town hall was built in 1680–91, but the town was poor, and its population fell below about 1,500.

Royal visits resumed in 1778, and part of the castle's royal apartments was refurbished for George III in 1804. The substantial redevelopment of the castle that followed, Queen Victoria's residence from 1840 and the arrival of two railways in 1849 — built by rival companies that each wanted to carry the Queen — brought the most dramatic changes in the town's history.

Windsor's identity is bound to the monarchy. The castle is one of the monarch's official residences, and St George's Chapel, inside its walls, is the chapel of the Order of the Garter and a royal peculiar, under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch. The chapel holds the tombs of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour and Charles I, and its former Lady Chapel was completed and renamed the Albert Memorial Chapel.

Across the river, Eton is dominated by Eton College, the school that educates many of England's establishment, especially future politicians, judges and diplomats. The Royal Windsor Horse Show, held each year since 1943 in Home Park below the castle, is the only show in the UK hosting international competition in dressage, show jumping, carriage driving and endurance riding, and draws more than 50,000 visitors; it has long been attended by royalty. Racing takes place at the riverside Royal Windsor Racecourse, and the Theatre Royal, a Victorian theatre, stages touring productions.

The town has had many notable residents. Geoffrey Chaucer held the post of Clerk of the Works at the castle in 1391, though there is no record that he visited, and Sir Sydney Camm, designer of the Hawker Hurricane fighter, lived in the town; a replica Hurricane on the Thames Promenade near Alexandra Gardens remembers him.

Windsor is part of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, about 22 miles west of central London, 6 miles south-east of Maidenhead and 16 miles east of Reading. The Thames forms its boundary with Eton to the north, and Old Windsor lies just over 2 miles to the south.

Mainly because of the castle, Windsor is a popular tourist destination, and tourism shapes the town centre, from the gift shops around the castle to the shops and restaurants inside Windsor Royal Station. Legoland Windsor Resort, built on the site of the former Windsor Safari Park, is the only Legoland park in the United Kingdom and, by area, the largest in the world. The town lies under the flight path of Heathrow Airport.

Day-to-day life centres on Peascod Street, the ancient main street, now pedestrianised and lined with shops leading up to the castle. Residents use the two stations for trains to London, and frequent buses run to Heathrow, central London and Legoland. In winter Alexandra Gardens by the river hosts a temporary ice rink, and Windsor Great Park, most of which is open to the public free of charge from dawn to dusk, serves as the town's countryside.

Windsor's food is mostly that of an English market town busy with visitors: pubs, cafés and restaurants around the castle walls and along the river, including a listed building with views across the Thames, alongside Chinese, Moroccan, Indian and Portuguese peri-peri restaurants. Windsor Royal Station, inside Windsor & Eton Central station, holds more shops and restaurants.

Two English dishes carry the names of the two towns. Eton mess is a traditional dessert of strawberries or other berries, meringue and whipped cream; first mentioned in print in 1893, it is commonly believed to come from Eton College and is served at the school's annual cricket match against Harrow School, where it is occasionally served as Harrow mess. Windsor soup, or Brown Windsor soup, is a British soup associated with the Victorian and Edwardian eras; elegant recipes for it appeared among famous 19th-century chefs, but the "Brown Windsor" name, which did not emerge until at least the 1920s, came to mean a cheap brown soup of uncertain ingredients and later became a joke about bad English food.