Description
Windsor, a municipal and parliamentary borough, market and union town, and head of a petty sessional division and county court district in Berks. The town stands on the river Thames at the termini of two branch lines of the G.W. and L. & S.W.R., 22 miles W by S from London. By the river it is 43 miles from London and 68 1/2 from Oxford. The name, signifying " the winding shore," alludes to sinuosities of the Thames in its vicinity, belonged originally to Old Windsor, 2 1/2 miles to the SE by S, and was written by the Saxons Windlesofra and Windlesora. The town grew around the nucleus or early portions of Windsor Castle, and has always owed its main consequence to the contiguity of that royal residence. Its chief thoroughfare goes curvingly through its centre from the Thames, is about half a mile long, and bears the names successively of Thames, High, and Park streets. Its aggregate structure as to either alignment or architecture, viewed apart from the royal palace, is of little interest. A house at the foot of the Hundred Steps, and demolished in 1860, is supposed to have been the house of Mrs Page in Shakespeare's " Merry Wives of Windsor." The Duke's Head public-house in Peascod Street took its name from Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and was a resort of that duke and of Charles II. The Town-Hall was built in 1686 by Wren, is a plain edifice, but contains a fine collection of portraits. The town, owing to its Royal Castle, is an important military station, one regiment of the Household Cavalry and one battalion of Foot Guards being always stationed here. Infantry barracks for 1000 men are in Sheet Street, and cavalry barracks for the same number are in Spital Road. Trovers College in Datchet Road was formerly occupied by the Naval Knights of Windsor, but after their dissolution in 1893 the building was taken over as a school for the boys of St George's Royal Chapel. The Military Knights, first instituted by King Edward III., have their residences on the south-side of the lower castle ward. A bridge across the Thames connecting the borough with Eton, was built in 1823, has three granite piers, supporting three cast-iron arches, and is 200 feet long and 29 wide. A large market for meat, poultry, and butter adjoins the town-hall. The theatre in Thames Street was built in 1815 at a cost of nearly £6000, was much remodelled in 1869, and will hold 500 persons. The Albert Institute in Sheet Street, opened by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales in 1881, is an edifice of red brick in the Tudor Gothic style. It has a large lecture hall, a library and museum, reading, class, and billiard rooms. A hideous statue of Queen Anne is on the N side of the market-place; and a pillar, commemorative of the jubilee of George III,, is at Bachelor's Acre. The Jubilee statue of Her Majesty Queen Victoria stands on the Castle Hill, is the work of the late Sir J. E. Boehm, R.A., and is of bronze on a pedestal of Aberdeen granite. A bronze equestrian statue of the late Prince Consort, presented to the Queen by the women of the United Kingdom as part of their jubilee offering, stands on Smith's Lawn, Windsor Great Park, and was unveiled 12 May, 1890. A magnificent mausoleum of the late Prince Consort stands half a mile E of the town, and is noticed in our article on FROGMORE. The G.W.R. from Slough is carried across the river a little above the town by a handsome bridge of very peculiar construction. The L. & S.W.R. from Staines crosses a little below the town, terminates immediately at the base of the Castle, and has a private entrance for the Queen.
The parish church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, is in the High Street, and is a plain building of freestone in a style of modern Gothic, consisting of apsidal chancel, nave, aisles, and a large embattled square tower with pinnacles at the angles. It has a handsome interior with open chancel, nave, aisles, and galleries, contains some fine carved oak, the work of Grinling Gibbons, many ancient and interesting tombs and monuments, and some good stained windows. All Saints, a chapel of ease to the parish church, stands in Frances Road, and is a building of brick in the Early English style. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; gross value, £1000 with residence, in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. Holy Trinity is an ecclesiastical parish formed in 1843. The church, erected in 1843,is the garrison church of Windsor, and is a cruciform building of brick in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, transepts, and a western tower with pinnacles and spire. It contains a memorial to the Brigade of Guards, and has an illumination running round the entire face of the gallery, with the name of every officer and man of the three battalions of Foot Guards who fell in the Crimea-2129 names in all. It has also a beautiful east window of stained glass, and many handsome monuments. The living is a rectory of the net value of £370, in the gift of the Crown. The church of the Saviour in River Street is a chapel of ease to Holy Trinity, and is a building of brick and stone in the Early English style. The ecclesiastical parish of Clewer St Stephen was formed in 1872. The living is a perpetual curacy of the gross value of £200. The church in Vansittart Road, erected in 1872, is a building of white brick and stone in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, side aisles, and a central crocketed flfeche containing one bell. There is a Roman Catholic chapel in the Alma Road, and there are Baptist, Brethren, Congregational, Evangelistic, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels. The charities are numerous and valuable, amounting in the aggregate to upwards of £3000 a year.
The town has a head post office, three banks, several hotels, and a police station, is a seat of petty sessions, special sessions, and county courts, publishes two weekly newspapers, carries on the brewing of ale chiefly for the London market, and has a weekly market on Saturday. Its shops and other business establishments are much superior to those of most other towns of its size, and serve not only for the town itself, but for a populous and very wealthy neighbourhood. Not fewer than 100 gentlemen's seats are within 7 miles of it, and the attractions of the royal palace, the races at Ascot, and the fitness of the adjacent reaches of the Thames for fishing and boating draw many visitors. A regatta is held here annually when challenge and presentation prizes are offered for competition. There is also a racecourse about a mile from the town on Rays Island above Clewer, where meetings are held at different periods of the year. The town was chartered by Edward I., is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors. It sent two members to Parliament several times before the reign of Henry VI., continued to send two from the time of Henry VI. till 1867, and was reduced by the Reform Act of that year to the right of sending only one. The parliamentary borough includes portions of Eton and Clewer, has an area of 3275 acres and a population of 18,893. The municipal borough is divided into the Castle, Clewer, and Park Wards, and has a population of 12,327. The Marquis of Bute takes from the town the title of Earl.
