Windsor Castle

London: Pitkin Pictorials Ltd, 1983. Presumed First Edition/First Printing. Wraps. Very good. 30. [2] pages. Illustrations (color). Map. Cover has slight wear and soiling. Format is approximately 11.5 inches by 8. inches. This guide to Windsor Castle is one of the first titles in the new 'Britain's Heritage' series of large format pictorial guide books. Sir Robert Christopher 'Robin' Mackworth-Young GCVO (12 February 1920 - December 2000) was a British academic and librarian, who served as Royal Librarian between 1958 and 1985. Mackworth-Young was the son of a civil servant in British India. He was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Union. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Mackworth-Young joined the Royal Air Force. He saw active service in the Middle East and in the Normandy Campaign, leaving the RAF as a Squadron Leader in 1948. He subsequently joined the Foreign Office. In 1955, Mackworth-Young was appointed to be a librarian in the Royal Household at Windsor Castle. In 1958 he succeeded Sir Owen Morshead as Royal Librarian. In 1961 he was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order, and was promoted to Knight Commander in 1975 and Knight Grand Cross in 1985. He was a member of the Roxburghe Club from 1965. From his retirement in 1985 to his death he was given the honorary title of Emeritus Librarian by Elizabeth II. Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is notable for its long association with the English and later British royal family and for its architecture. The original castle was built in the 11th century after the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I, it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. The castle's lavish early 19th-century State Apartments were described by the art historian Hugh Roberts as "a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms widely regarded as the finest and most complete expression of later Georgian taste". Inside the castle walls is the 15th-century St.George's Chapel, considered by the historian John Martin Robinson to be "one of the supreme achievements of English Perpendicular Gothic" design. Originally designed to protect Norman dominance around the outskirts of London and oversee a strategically important part of the River Thames, Windsor Castle was built as a motte-and-bailey, with three wards surrounding a central mound. Gradually replaced with stone fortifications, the castle withstood a prolonged siege during the First Barons' War at the start of the 13th century. Henry III built a luxurious royal palace within the castle during the middle of the century, and Edward III went further, rebuilding the palace to make an even grander set of buildings in what would become "the most expensive secular building project of the entire Middle Ages in England". Edward's core design lasted through the Tudor period, during which Henry VIII and Elizabeth I made increasing use of the castle as a royal court and centre for diplomatic entertainment. Windsor Castle survived the tumultuous period of the English Civil War, when it was used as a military headquarters for Parliamentary forces and a prison for Charles I. At the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II rebuilt much of Windsor Castle with the help of the architect Hugh May, creating a set of extravagant Baroque interiors that are still admired. After a period of neglect during the 18th century, George III and George IV renovated and rebuilt Charles II's palace at colossal expense, producing the current design of the State Apartments, full of Rococo, Gothic and Baroque furnishings. Queen Victoria made a few minor changes to the castle, which became the centre for royal entertainment for much of her reign. Windsor Castle was used as a refuge for the royal family during the Luftwaffe bombing campaigns of the Second World War and survived a fire in 1992. It is a popular tourist attraction, a venue for hosting state visits, and the preferred weekend home of Elizabeth II. Today, more than 500 people live and work in Windsor Castle, making it the largest inhabited castle in the world.