Stonehenge
Salisbury Cathedral
Windsor Castle Gardens
St George's Chapel

The purpose of Stonehenge, the world's most famous stone circle, remains a mystery. Its origins go back as far as the Pyramids. What today's visitor sees are the mighty remains of a sequence of monuments erected between 3000 and 1000 BC. Most well-known are the trilithons, large door-frame-shaped arrangements, made up of two standing stones, topped by a lintel stone which is actually fixed by mortice-and-tenon joints. The stones are aligned so that on the midsummer and midwinter solstices the sun shines straight through the circle onto the central Heel Stone.

The soaring spire of Salisbury Cathedral is England's tallest at 123 metres (404 feet). A magnificent piece of architecture, the Cathedral was built between 1220 and 1258 and is unique for its sense of harmony. The Cloisters and the Chapter House are outstanding and the library holds one of the four copies of the Magna Carta. The Cathedral Close is a beautiful, walled precinct of splendid houses dating from medieval times to the 18th century.

Windsor Castle has been a principal royal residence ever since William the Conqueror built a wooden castle there in 1070. The present stone round tower was built a century later and today Britain's royal family stays there regularly. Many monarchs have embellished the castle and a tour of its sumptuously furnished state apartments provides a sampling of royal tastes through the centuries.

St. George's Chapel, an architecturally outstanding building dating from the 15th century, contains the tombs of ten monarchs. The town itself, located to the west of the castle walls, retains a Georgian character.

A footbridge across the Thames connects Windsor with Eton and its famous school, where Princes William and Harry were educated, and downstream is the meadow at Runnymede where King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215.