New Look Windsor Castle Garden Opens

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Magnificent Royal Garden

A magnificent royal garden beneath the famous east façade of Windsor Castle has been transformed according to His Majesty The King’s vision and will open to visitors for the summer.

Formerly known as the East Terrace Garden, the newly renamed and redesigned Venus Garden will become part of a standard visit to Windsor Castle between Thursday, 16 July and Sunday, 13 September, marking the first opportunity to experience this historic space as inspired by The King’s passion for patterns in nature.

The garden opening gives visitors the rare opportunity to enjoy stunning views of the Castle’s east façade – seldom seen as part of the usual visitor route – and to spend time in an outdoor space within the walls of the 1,000-year-old Castle.

First laid out in the 1820s on the site of Charles II’s bowling green to provide a pleasant view from George IV’s new apartments, the garden has been reshaped by successive generations of the Royal Family. Queen Victoria recorded that Prince Albert took particular interest in its planting, while during the Second World War, the beds became allotments for Castle residents, including the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. In the decades that followed, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh simplified the layout into formal rose beds and commissioned a central fountain. The garden has intermittently been open to the public throughout its history, most recently for weekend openings in the summers of 2020 and 2021.

The redesigned Venus Garden takes its inspiration from the orbit of Earth’s closest neighbour in the solar system. Traced over eight years, Venus’s orbit creates a petal-like floral pattern. This pattern has inspired the layout of newly laid perennial beds and evergreen hedge-lined pathways, through which visitors will be free to wander as they explore the garden.