The short columns
The ground-floor columns stop just shy of the ceiling, and the Christopher Wren tale about them is better known than the historical truth.
Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK — CC BY 2.0 · David Short from Windsor, UK — CC BY 2.0 · David Howard — CC BY-SA 2.0
On the ground floor of this small brick-and-stone building, a few steps from Windsor Castle's Henry VIII Gate, there are columns that do not reach the ceiling. The story guides have told for generations is that Sir Christopher Wren was ordered to add them by a council nervous that the upper floor would collapse, and left them deliberately short to prove the building never needed them. Historians now doubt Wren had anything to do with the place, but the gap is real and you will find yourself peering up at it along with everyone else. The building dates from the late 1600s, designed by Sir Thomas Fitch and built between 1687 and 1689, its open arcaded ground floor a corn market before it became the seat of the town council and magistrates. Its modern fame is simpler: in the Council Chamber upstairs, Prince Charles, now King Charles III, married Camilla in a civil ceremony on 9 April 2005, and the room is still hired out for weddings. It has chandeliers on loan from the Crown, walls of royal portraits and hand-carved wooden chairs. The paid visit, GBP 5 for adults and free for under-16s, covers the small museum gallery downstairs and a self-guided walk through the upstairs rooms including the royal wedding room. The museum is resolutely local: a mammoth tusk about 100,000 years old, a model of the Hawker Hurricane designed by Windsor-born Sir Sydney Camm, and the stories of townspeople. It is a pleasant half hour, an hour at most; in other words, not the reason you come to Windsor, but a good thing to do after the castle if the day has time left in it. The only real problem is the opening pattern: Tuesday and Wednesday 10:00 to 16:00, Sunday 11:00 to 14:00 only, and the upstairs rooms shut whenever a wedding is booked. The facade, the arcade and the Crooked House leaning against it next door, looking ready to tip onto the pavement, can be seen at any time for nothing, and honestly they are half the pleasure. Windsor & Eton Central station is a six-minute walk; there is no parking at the building, so use Victoria Street or King Edward Court car parks.
The ground-floor columns stop just shy of the ceiling, and the Christopher Wren tale about them is better known than the historical truth.
The upstairs Council Chamber where King Charles III married Camilla in 2005, with its Crown-lent chandeliers and royal portraits.
The timber-framed building next door has leaned alarmingly over the pavement for centuries and can be seen free at any time.
High Street, Windsor SL4 1LR
Crooked House of WindsorA three-storey house that leans off its own vertical as though frozen mid-collap1 minute walk4.2
St George's Chapel, WindsorA slab of black marble barely two metres long, carrying nothing but names and da2 minutes walk4.7
Windsor CastleIf the Royal Standard is flying from the Round Tower, King Charles III is spendi3 minutes walk4.6
The Long Walk, WindsorA dead-straight line roughly four kilometres long, from the gate of Windsor Cast6 minutes walk4.9If you have children with you or a spare hour after the castle, the GBP 5 is fair because under-16s enter free and the royal wedding room is the one thing you cannot see from the street. On a tight day, or if you turn up on any day other than Tuesday, Wednesday or Sunday, the short columns, the arcade and the Crooked House can be seen from the pavement in five minutes and you miss little.