Windsor Castle & Hampton Court Palace, Private Tour

Itinerary

No trip to Windsor could possibly be complete without a visit to amazing Windsor Castle, the family home to British kings and queens for over 1,000 years. Tour includes Eton College, home of one of England's famous public schools; President John F Kennedy Memorial site Windsor Great Park and Runnymede Birth place of freedom, where King John sealed the Magna carta (The Magna Carta, also known as the Great Charter to the Liberties of England, is a document originally issued in Latin in the year 1215. The Great Charter is truly great, because it was the first legal document to establish that leaders did not have arbitrary power, granted under Divine Authority, but instead were subject to the law of the land. The feudal barons forced King John of England to sign the Magna Carta in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their rights. In a way, it was the world's very first written Constitution. The charter was a major part of the process that led to the rule of constitutional law in the English speaking world, an ideal which was eventually transported to the New World. It would inspire the Founding Fathers to draft a new document, the United States Constitution. As a tribute to its influence, a copy of the Magna Carter is housed in the Temple of Founding History, the National Archive, in Washington D.C.)

Hampton Court Palace. Hampton Court was built by Cardinal Wolsey. There will be time to visit the lovely gardens, maze and State rooms. 500 years of garden history These gardens, now visited by thousands of people every year, were once the exclusive playground of kings and queens. New ideas and designs arrived with each new era, from the Tudors through to the Victorians. Today the Gardens and Estate team continue the work of past royal gardeners. Monarchs and their gardeners have all influenced the gardens in different ways. In the early 1500s Cardinal Wolsey laid out the first small knot gardens, before Henry VIII took over the palace, strutting through his heraldic Privy Garden. From Charles II’s elegant Long Water, to William III & Mary II’s fine baroque gardens, including the Maze, to dazzling displays of Victorian mass bedding, Hampton Court Gardens have always been at the cutting edge of design.