Windsor Castle

Re-presenting Europe’s longest occupied Royal palace.  

Windsor Castle has been the home of the Royal Family for nearly a thousand years and is one of the country’s major tourist attractions. The Royal Collection has completed a major programme of investment which focused on improving the visitor experience of this historic site. Replacing the existing audio guide was a key part of this re-presentation and ATS was appointed following a competitive tender to develop a fresh new approach to the interpretation of the castle. 

Challenge : With nearly 1.5 million visitors every year, the biggest challenge ATS had to address was how to help people navigate their way around this complex site whilst at the same time ensuring that they engage easily with Windsor’s rich history. To meet this challenge required not only a radical change to tour content but also the development of an intuitive wayfinding system. ATS worked closely with both the curators and the Visitor Services team to develop the tour and train and support staff in its distribution and management. 

Our solution:  We were able to use our extensive experience of working at some of the busiest tourist attractions in the country to develop a wayfinding system for Windsor. Our bespoke interface allows visitors to choose the route they want to take and to explore topics and objects within it as well as to hear from experts who work in the castle. We also developed innovative ways of balancing the 1,000 year history of the castle with its contemporary use, including interviews with members of the Royal Family on what it’s like to live and work at Windsor. The experience for families has also been boosted by the creation of a tour which includes games and interactives. Given to everyone as part of their entry ticket, our multimedia guide has already become an integral part of the visitor experience. It has received high praise and one of the surprising outcomes has been that because visitors are so much more engaged, wardens have been given extra training to help them to interact even more with visitors.