WINDSOR'S PASSAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 253, 24 October 1936, Page 11 (Supplement)

WINDSOR'S PASSAGES.

SECRET WAYS UNDER CASTLE. ARCHITECT'S DISCOVERIES. Mr. Robert B. Robertson, for 24 yeare chapter purveyor at Windsor Castle, recently retired at the age of 75. Tie had been responsible for many alterations, and improvements at the castle, but the work which, he says, has interested him most has been the exploring of the secret passages which run under the castle. "When I camc here," he said, "there were all kinds of legends about passages running out into the forest, and one was supposed to go under the river and end j in the cellars of Burnliam Abbey, five j or six miles away. ! "I can definitely say that there are three long and well-constructed passages. One goes due south, one due west, and the other takes an easterly direction, but I think the theory that another runs to the north can be dispelled. The three passages all led into a moat, which, in the early days, surrounded the castle. Ilie moat has now disappeared and is now part of the town. "If the passages went any farther I cannot say. The moat was constructed to protect the castle from attack, and there is no doubt that when troops were attacking the main gates of the castle the defender raced down secret passages into the moat and then attacked the invading army in the rear." During the restoration of St. George's Chapel, from 1920 to 1930, Mr. Robertson was closely associated with the work. He is to spend his retirement in Scotland.