How and why has Windsor Castle developed since 1080?

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Ellen McGachy 11EC. History Coursework.

Windsor Castle

Coursework.

“How and why has Windsor Castle developed since 1080? Explain your answer with reference to historical influences that have shaped the castle.”

Windsor Castle is over 900 years old and is the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world. Windsor has changed a great deal over that period of time, from a wooden Motte and Bailey castle, to a medieval fortress, to the world famous tourist attraction and home to the royal family that it is today.  In this essay I will look at the ways in which Windsor Castle has developed and changed over the last 9 centuries.

Historians believe that Windsor Castle was built around the year 1080, over 900 years ago, when William the conqueror was in power. William was a French man, and won the throne and became King of England by wining the famous battle of Hastings. He built Windsor Castle originally as a Motte and Bailey castle. Motte and Bailey castles were very simple; wooden keeps built on an earth mounds that were surrounded at the base with an area that armies could live in. Source A shows a Motte and Bailey castle and its various parts. Motte and Bailey’s had advantages and disadvantages, on one side they were quick and easy to build and the materials used to build them were also cheap and widely available. Very simple Motte and Baileys were constructed in as little as a week, depending on how many workers there were and the weather etc. On the other hand, they were lonely, smelly, cold place. They also were prone to collapse and rot. They were made from earth and wood, so when they got wet, they reeked, and as they were made of wood they burned easily.

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Windsor was an atypical castle in that it was built on a Motte (the mound) that was already there, naturally formed, it also had two baileys, (the part where armies lived at the base) which made it unusual .The advantages of Windsor were the river Thames on the doorstep and the woodlands at the rear. Windsor was originally built so that the King could keep control of his people. As he had taken the throne by force, he was not very popular in England, so he built a ring of castles around London so as to watch over his subjects ...

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