Windsor Castle opens terrace garden to public for first time since 1970s
The Queen, as a young Princess Elizabeth, had her own pot to grow tomatoes, sweetcorn and dwarf beans with her sisters.
Thursday 6 August 2020 13:47, UK
The formal gardens where the Queen grew vegetables to help the war effort will open to the public this weekend for the first time in decades.
From Saturday, visitors can explore Windsor Castle's East Terrace Garden complete with manicured lawns, colourful flowerbeds and sculptured topiary.
The gardens were designed by George IV in the 1820s and in the Second World War were dug up to grow produce.
The Queen - then Princess Elizabeth - and her sisters were assigned a small site to cultivate tomatoes, sweetcorn and dwarf beans.
Windsor Castle's learning curator, Richard Williams, told media that Queen Victoria had a great affection for the gardens because her husband Prince Albert helped lay out its design.
"And it also has a significance for Her Majesty the Queen, because during the war years the whole garden was dug up in order to grow vegetables, and the then young Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret had their own individual plots to grow vegetables for the war effort," he said.
"And I suppose the other significance for the Queen is that in 1971 it was the Duke of Edinburgh who effectively designed the garden as we see it today, with the flower beds and the beautiful fountain at the centre."
The East Terrace Garden was first designed for George IV to provide a pleasant view from the king's new suite of royal apartments along the castle's east front.
It was created on the site of an old bowling green, made for Charles II in the 1670s, with plants imported for the grand project - including 34 orange trees sent by France's monarch Charles X.
At the time, Queen Victoria wrote in her diary that Prince Albert "is daily occupied... in superintending the planting of the garden in the inside of the terrace".
"The plots were before so scrubby & scraggy, but are now being very nicely arranged with laurustinus, bays."
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In 1971, Philip redesigned the flowerbeds and commissioned a new bronze lotus fountain based on his own design for the centre of the garden.
A few years later public access stopped.
Today, it features clipped domes of yew and beds of 3,500 rose bushes planted in a geometric pattern around the duke's central water feature.
From this weekend, the East Terrace Garden is included with an admission to Windsor Castle on weekends in August and September.