The Chapter Garden , Windsor Castle – the outdoor venue for the Guild’s summer productions.

Since 1952, with very few exceptions, the Windsor Theatre Guild has performed an outdoor evening summer production on the lawns below the castle banks and, in recent years, also a children’s matinee.  Many of the audience make up parties of friends and arrange a picnic before the show. 

A wonderful description of the Chapter Garden is given in the publication The Chapter Garden , Windsor Castle , by R H E Russel MA CVO, former headmaster of St. George’s School , Windsor Castle .

“Lying below the northern walls of the castle, the Chapter Garden is a belt of green between the Datchet Road and the castle banks. On it’s eastern side it is bounded by the main building of St. George’s School , a building of appropriately historic import and erstwhile residence of the Naval Knights of Windsor. A Canalleto painting of the mid 18 th century shows the view of the castle and town from along the Datchet Lane and we see the extension of the Chapter Garden wall. We also see the banks with their beautiful symmetrical plantation of trees and the angular path along which tread ladies in their crinolines. High on the bank, just below the castle wall, there stands a mock temple.  In 1802 the building of Travers College was  completed and the order of the Naval Knights was founded. A print of the building by Stradler was issued in 1804. In it the Chapter Garden is fore-shortened; the banks are made too steep and the trees thereon no longer conform to patterns, but appear as a leafy bed on which the castle sits. Myth and legend blend to confuse us as to the original purpose of this stretch of ground, but certainly there is a strong belief that it was in this area that martyrs were burnt at the stake in the sixteenth century.

Connoisseurs of foliage and plants will enjoy circumambulating the garden, for within its confines they will find examples of Weeping Ash, Copper Beech, Mulberry, a Judas tree, a Norway Kaple, an incipient Cedar, a Flowering Cherry, an Almond tree and a large Bay tree. They will also find a fine Wisteria along the wall that skirts the Datchet Road ; it is said that this Wisteria was part of a gift from the Emperor of China to Queen Victoria and among the first to come to this country.

The Chapter Garden lies for the most part barely above river level and from time to time has been completely flooded; in the nineteenth century such flooding was commonplace. Preventative action has ensured that recent years have not inconvenienced us in this way. Many photographs exist to show the water lapping the two front steps of the school both in 1933 and in 1947”.