Windsor

WINDSOR (or New Windsor), anciently called Windlesora, the "winding shore" (A.S. "ora," shore), is a municipal and parliamentary borough, head of a petty sessional division and of a county court district and a market and union town on the navigable Thames, 22 miles from London, 19 from Reading, 14 from Hampton Court, and 6 south-east from Maidenhead, in the Eastern division of the county, hundred of Ripplesmere, rural deanery of Maidenhead, archdeaconry of Berks, and diocese of Oxford. The town consists of New Windsor and part of the suburb of Clewer, on the west. Over the Thames, connecting the borough with Eton, is a bridge 200 feet long and 29 feet wide, supported by three arches of cast iron, the middle one being 55 feet span, resting on piers of granite; the bridge is now free of toll and was built in 1823. Lower down the river are two bridges: the Victoria bridge of one arch to Datchet and the Albert bridge of four arches from Old Windsor to Datchet. The town was given by Edward the Confessor to Westminster Abbey, but seems to have first acquired importance by the building of the castle, in which William the Norman is said to have lived. In 1276 it was made a free borough, then receiving a charter from Edward I. renewed by later sovereigns, till Charles II. granted a new charter, which remained in force until the passing of the "Municipal Corporations Act" in 1835.