A new Windsor Castle group tour will be offering a rare opportunity to really get behind the scenes of the historic building.

The first tour to be available to pre-booked groups, the tour, entitled ‘From Great Kitchen to State Apartments’, will run until March 2004 and begins with an introduction to the history of royal eating habits and a guide to Windsor as a working royal palace.

The guided visit also includes a tour around the Great Kitchen and medieval undercroft – both of which are normally closed to the public. The tour concludes in the State Apartments, which are regularly used for state entertaining.

Following the fire of 1992, the Great Kitchen was painstakingly restored to its former glory, during which rarities such as the stone vaulting and arcade of Edward III’s undercroft, were revealed for the first time in centuries. Details: www.royal.gov.uk