THE PALACE OF WINDSOR.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2647, 29 June 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE PALACE OF WINDSOR.

At tho grand entrance stands a fine statue of the Queen with a ducr-hound at her feet, by Mr Boehm. The staircase leads to the principal floor, but it is on

;ho groundfloor, not, of course, shown to

the public, that some of the oldest relics of architecture are to be found. The visitor will probably be more interested in tho famous ' Vandyck Room,' where, if tho price of some £ IG,OOO paid for the

Blenheim portrait of Charles I. be accepted as a criterion, he will see a woalth of Art ' beyond the dreams of avarico.' The equestrian picture here was sold about the time when the king it repre-

sonted so nobly was laid, a headless corpse, beside the body of his predecessor iu the vaults of St George's Chapel. A certain Van Leemput bought the picture for L'2oo. At tho Restoration such bargains wore, of course, repudiated. Van Leemput, however, asked 15000 guineas as compensation. This was refused, but he had an offer of 1000; and when he would not take it, an action was brought successfully for recovery of the picture, and Van Leemput got nothing. The group of five figures with a great dog is probably quite as valuable. The park which is attached to Windsor Castle is one of tho finest in England, and comprises nearly all that is loft of the great Berkshire forest of King Harold's and King William's time. From tho little Home Park it stretches southwards for many miles, and you are hardly out of it

till you r-;uch Chobbhatn, through Cranbourno a.ul Swiuley, Ascot and Bag.ihot. From Windsor Castle tho Park aeeiris interminable and unbroken, but, as a fact

the liottie L'ark and that further expanse ot wild wood round Snow Hill are only joined together by the narrow green line of the old Avenue of elms known as tho Long Walk. George HI. thought, pcr-

haps rightly, that farms were better than forests ; and much land, some of which has now been restored to the Park, was turned by him into arable, and cultivated by leaseholders. When Norden surveyed

the Great Park for James 1., tho circuit was about feventy-seven milas, the por-

tion close to the castle being very small, and the town encroaching upon it on all aides. Charles 11. first planted the elms which were to bridge over the distance between the Home and the Great Parks, and, liko all elms more than two hundred years old, they uro beginning to show signs of decay. Had they been oaks tliey would bo in their prima.—Art Journal.