Think about a building that has survived the Black Death, the English Civil War, and the Blitz. Most people walk through the massive gates of the world’s largest inhabited castle and ask the same thing: Windsor Castle how old is it actually? If you want the quick answer, it’s about 950 years old. But that’s a bit like saying an old person is "just" 90; it misses the cosmetic surgeries, the bone grafts, and the entirely new limbs added over the centuries.
William the Conqueror started this whole project around 1070. He didn't build it because he liked the view of the Thames, though the view is great. He built it as a "motte and bailey" fortress to keep a literal stranglehold on London. It was one of nine defensive points meant to protect the capital from disgruntled locals who weren't exactly thrilled about being conquered by Normans.
Honestly, if William saw it today, he wouldn’t recognize it. The original structure was timber. It was basically a giant wooden fence on a pile of dirt. It took Henry II—the king who famously had a temper and a bit of a problem with Thomas Becket—to start swapping out the wood for stone in the late 12th century.
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The Timeline of a 950-Year-Old Giant
When we talk about the age of this place, we’re talking about layers. It’s like an onion made of flint and limestone.
- The 1070s: William the Conqueror plants a flag. It’s all wood and mud.
- The 1170s: Henry II gets serious. He builds the Round Tower out of stone. That’s the big circular bit you see in the middle. It’s actually not perfectly round, but don't tell the architects that.
- The 1360s: Edward III goes on a spending spree. He spent £50,000 on renovations, which back then was an absolutely obscene amount of money. It was the most expensive secular building project of the entire Middle Ages in England. He wanted a palace that reflected the glory of the Order of the Garter.
- The 1820s: George IV—a man with very expensive tastes and a love for the dramatic—gives the castle its "castle-y" look. He added the crenellations (those tooth-like bits on top of walls) and height to the towers just to make it look more intimidating.
So, when you ask Windsor Castle how old it is, you're really looking at a 19th-century "remix" of an 11th-century fortress. It’s a bit of a historical Frankenstein's monster, but a very posh one.
The Survival of the 1992 Fire
We can't talk about the age of Windsor without mentioning the fire. November 20, 1992. Queen Elizabeth II famously called it her annus horribilis. A spotlight pressed against a curtain in the Private Chapel ignited, and before anyone knew it, 115 rooms were being devoured by flames.
You’d think a fire that big would ruin a 900-year-old building. But here’s the kicker: the restoration was so good that in some places, the castle looks older and more "authentic" than it did before the fire. They used traditional methods, like carving oak by hand, to bring St. George’s Hall back to life. It took five years and cost about £37 million. Most of that was funded by opening Buckingham Palace to the public for the first time.
Why the Round Tower is a Bit of a Lie
If you look at the Round Tower today, you’re looking at George IV’s ego. Historically, the tower was much shorter. In the 1820s, George decided it wasn't imposing enough. He had the height increased by 30 feet.
It’s interesting because Windsor is a "Palace-Fortress." It’s a hybrid. It has to be fancy enough for a State Banquet with world leaders, but tough enough to have survived sieges in the 1200s. During the Magna Carta era, King John was holed up here while the Barons were trying to take him down. It’s one of the few places on Earth where you can stand on the same stones where a medieval siege happened while a modern Boeing 747 flies overhead toward Heathrow.
The People Who Actually Live There
It's not a museum. That’s the weirdest part.
There are around 150 people who live and work inside those walls. You’ve got the Military Knights of Windsor, the Governor of the Castle, and various staff members. When the Royal Standard is flying, the King is in. When the Union Jack is flying, he’s not.
Most people don't realize that the castle is basically a small village. It has its own post office, its own police force, and its own rules. The sheer scale of it is hard to wrap your head around until you’re standing in the Quadrangle. It covers about 13 acres. To put that in perspective, that’s about two and a half football fields, but filled with some of the most expensive art and furniture in human history.
Hidden Secrets Underground
Beneath the surface of this nearly millennium-old structure, there are tunnels. Some are for the staff to move around without being seen by tourists. Others are much older. There’s a secret sally port—an escape tunnel—located under a rug in one of the offices. It leads out to the bottom of the moat. It was designed so that if the castle was overrun, the royals could literally vanish into the darkness and pop out in the woods nearby.
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And then there are the vaults.
St. George’s Chapel is the final resting place for some of the biggest names in history. Henry VIII is down there. So is Charles I (the one who lost his head) and, more recently, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. The chapel itself is about 500 years old, a masterpiece of Perpendicular Gothic architecture. The stone fan vaulting on the ceiling is so intricate it looks like lace, even though it weighs tons.
What Tourists Usually Get Wrong
A lot of people think the "Mound" that the Round Tower sits on is natural. It isn't. It’s man-made. William the Conqueror’s guys had to dig a massive ditch and pile the dirt in the center to create that hill. Imagine doing that with nothing but wooden shovels and sheer willpower.
Another common misconception is that the castle was always this grey, stony color. In reality, it would have been much messier. In the medieval period, parts of it might have been whitewashed. It would have smelled like woodsmoke, horses, and—let's be honest—sewage. Today, it’s pristine. It’s the "Disney" version of history, but with real ghosts.
How to Actually Experience the Age of the Castle
If you’re planning a trip, don't just look at the gold leaf in the State Apartments. Look at the walls.
- The North Terrace: Look at the masonry. You can see the different types of stone used over the centuries. Some of it is crumbling "clunch" (a type of chalky limestone), while the newer bits are hard Heathstone.
- The Curfew Tower: This is one of the oldest parts of the castle. The lower sections date back to the 1200s. Inside, there are cells where prisoners were kept. There’s even ancient graffiti carved into the stone.
- The Great Park: Walk down the Long Walk. It’s a straight line that goes for about three miles. When you look back at the castle from the Copper Horse statue, you see the silhouette that has defined the English monarchy for centuries.
Is it Worth the Entry Price?
The tickets aren't cheap. It's usually around £28 to £30 depending on when you go. But you’re paying for access to 950 years of continuous history. You get to see the bullet-riddled armor of Guy Fawkes (okay, maybe not his, but definitely armor from that era) and paintings by Rembrandt and Canaletto that would be the centerpiece of any other museum in the world.
The "age" of Windsor isn't just a number. It’s the fact that the plumbing works in a building started by a guy who didn't know what a fork was. It’s the fact that the same kitchen has been prepping meals for nearly a thousand years. The ovens are modern now, obviously, but the walls surrounding those ovens have seen everything from the arrival of the potato in England to the invention of the microwave.
Actionable Insights for Your Visit
If you want to feel the weight of history without getting stuck in a crowd of people taking selfies, here is what you do.
Go for the Evensong service at St. George’s Chapel. It’s usually at 5:15 PM. You don't have to be religious. It’s free. You get to sit in the choir stalls—the same wooden seats used by the Knights of the Garter for centuries. The acoustics are haunting. As the sun sets through the stained glass, you truly understand the answer to Windsor Castle how old. You aren't just looking at a building; you're sitting inside a living organism that has breathed through ten centuries of human ambition.
Check the official Royal Collection Trust website before you go. They close the State Apartments when there's an official visit. There is nothing worse than paying full price and realizing you can't see the Waterloo Chamber because a visiting head of state is having tea there. Also, wear comfortable shoes. The cobblestones in the Lower Ward were not designed with modern sneakers or heels in mind; they were designed for boots and hooves. Expect to walk at least three to four miles if you’re doing the full tour and a bit of the Great Park.
Book your tickets at least two weeks in advance. Since 2024, the surge in "royal tourism" has made walk-up tickets almost non-existent during the summer months. If you can, aim for a Tuesday or Wednesday. The crowds are thinner, and you might actually get a moment of silence in the Queen Mary’s Dolls' House room, which is usually a chaotic bottleneck of humanity. This house, by the way, has running water and electricity—at 1:12 scale—built in the 1920s. It's a tiny window into a century-old idea of "modern" luxury.
Look closely at the walls in the State Apartments. You’ll see "GR" or "ER" or "WR" carved or painted in various places. These are royal cyphers. They tell you which monarch was responsible for that specific room or renovation. George Rex, Elizabeth Regina, William Rex. It’s a giant scavenger hunt that maps out the DNA of the British Empire.
Don't rush it. Most people try to "do" Windsor in two hours. You need four. You need time to sit on a bench and just look at the Round Tower and realize that when those stones were laid, the Americas hadn't been "discovered" by Europeans, the printing press didn't exist, and the English language sounded more like German than what we speak today. That is the real power of Windsor's age. It makes everything else feel very, very small.