Tower of London or Windsor Castle?

Published 21 September 2026 · By the Guide to London editorial team · Editor: Terje Moy

Choose the Tower of London. It is in the middle of the city, it opens seven days a week, the Crown Jewels and a Yeoman Warder tour are included in the price, and you do not lose a day getting there. Windsor is the better choice only when you have a spare day, have already done the Tower, or want to stand in the chapel where ten kings are buried.

Both are royal castles run by charities, both hold a famous collection behind airport-style security, and both keep a set of Henry VIII's armour. That is where the similarity stops. One is a twelve-minute walk from Monument; the other is a fifty-six-minute train ride, a ten-minute walk and a hill.

Our full guides to the Tower of London and to a Windsor Castle day trip cover what is inside each one. This page is about the choice: what the day costs, what it costs you in time, and the handful of situations in which the answer flips.

What the day costs two adults and two children

Put two adults and a pair of children, one aged eight and one aged fourteen, on an off-peak weekday, and add the fares to the admission. Prices are for September 2026.

Windsor's ticket is the cheaper of the two, by £15.00 for this family. The journey then hands the money back and takes £5.60 more on top. The off-peak return to Windsor & Eton Riverside was £17.80 for an adult when we checked a weekday morning on the National Rail journey planner, with children aged 5 to 15 paying half. If you have a railcard or are eligible for one, that gap narrows again, so it is worth checking before you decide on price alone.

One figure above is easy to misread. The Tower's £37.00 is the price without the optional charitable donation; the headline you see when booking may be £40.70. Windsor's £32.00 is the advance price, and buying at the gate costs £4.00 more per adult. Book both online and you are comparing like with like.

The days Windsor is shut

Royal Collection Trust states it plainly: no visits on a Tuesday, none on a Wednesday. The only exceptions listed for 2026 are two Tuesdays in the Christmas period. Windsor is also a lived-in royal residence, so parts of it, or all of it, can shut with little warning when a state visit or another official event is on.

The Tower has no weekly closing day at all. Doors open at 09:00 on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and an hour later at the weekend's other end, on Sunday and Monday. Everybody has to be through the gate by 16:30, and the site shuts at 17:30.

How long each one takes, door to door

Historic Royal Palaces asks for at least three hours at the Tower, and that is honest rather than optimistic. The regalia, a Yeoman Warder's tour, the keep, the armour and a stretch of battlements will use every minute of it. Add the walk from Tower Hill and you have a half-day that starts and ends in central London. We go through what each hour buys in our guide to how long the Tower of London takes.

Windsor is the opposite shape. Royal Collection Trust puts the visit itself at ninety minutes to two hours, which sounds efficient until you add the rest:

• 56 minutes on a direct train from Waterloo, or about 35 minutes from Paddington with a change at Slough
• about 10 minutes from either Windsor station to the castle
• airport-style security at the entrance
• roughly another 10 minutes, mostly uphill, from the Admission Centre to the State Apartments
• the same journey again in reverse

That is a five-hour day at an absolute minimum and seven or eight in practice, which is the point: Windsor is a day trip, not an attraction. Treated as a day trip it is a good one, and our page on Windsor in half a day shows how to compress it if you are short. Treated as an afternoon, it disappoints.

Crown Jewels or royal tombs: the collections are different

The Tower's draw is the working regalia. St Edward's Crown, the Imperial State Crown and the Sovereign's Sceptre sit in the Jewel House, and they are not replicas: a piece comes off display whenever a ceremony calls for it. A slow travelator takes you along the front of the case, which keeps the queue moving and stops anyone standing in your way.

Windsor's draw is the rooms and what hangs in them. Holbein, Rubens and Van Dyck are on the walls of the State Apartments, alongside the ceremonial spaces the Royal Family still uses. Queen Mary's Dolls' House is the second piece, and it converts more sceptics than the paintings do.

The third is St George's Chapel, which your ticket covers but which keeps a timetable of its own. Queen Elizabeth II is buried there, along with Charles I and Henry VIII. In September 2026 it admitted visitors on four days of the week, stopped admitting sightseers at 16:00, and kept Sundays for worshippers. If the tombs are your reason for going, check that day before you book the train, because a Sunday ticket buys you the castle without the chapel.

Both ban photography in their best rooms. At the Tower that means the Jewel House; at Windsor it means the State Apartments and the chapel. Outdoors you can photograph freely at either.

Weather, legs and queues

Neither is a good wet-weather choice, and people are often surprised by that. Much of the Tower is outdoors: the queue, the wall walk, Tower Green, the cobbles between buildings. Much of Windsor is outdoors too, including the hill, and the visit route covers long distances in the open air.

If you are choosing between them on a day of steady rain, the Tower is the marginally better bet, because you can sit out a shower inside the White Tower or the Jewel House and the day is not already half-spent on a train. If the forecast is genuinely bad, we keep an honest list of indoor days that are worth having.

If you want a guard change with it

Both places have one. At Windsor, castle visitors can watch the guard arrive just before 11:00, and in September 2026 the published schedule listed changes on Thursdays and Saturdays only. Mondays and Fridays bring a smaller Captain's Inspection within the walls in the middle of the afternoon.

The Tower runs its own daily routine instead. The guard takes part in a ceremonial opening first thing, collects the day's password in the middle of the afternoon, and locks the gates late at night in the Ceremony of the Keys, which needs a separate ticket because it happens long after closing. If the ceremony is the reason for your trip, the timings in central London are in our guide to the Changing of the Guard.

Doing both, and the order that works

On a longer trip there is room for both, and the order matters. Do the Tower early, in your first two or three days, while you are still in the centre and while the City of London is on your route anyway. Put Windsor later, on a day with nothing else in it, and check that day is not a Tuesday or Wednesday. Our five-day itinerary uses exactly that shape.

Do not try to pair Windsor with a second big sight in the same day. The obvious mistake is to add Tower Bridge or a museum to a Windsor day because the castle only takes two hours; the travel eats the margin. Pair Windsor with Eton, the Long Walk or Windsor Great Park instead, all of which are free and on the doorstep.

If a sightseeing pass is part of your plan, check which of the two it actually covers before you buy, and how many other paid sights you will realistically reach. Our worked examples in is the London Pass worth it include royal palaces, and the sums are rarely as good as the marketing. And if you are deciding between two palaces rather than two castles, we also compare Hampton Court and Windsor, and St Paul's and Westminster Abbey.

One last practical difference. A Tower ticket is valid for a single entry, so you cannot step out for lunch and come back. A Windsor ticket converts into a 1-Year Pass at no extra cost, giving free re-admission for twelve months, although Royal Collection Trust charges a £2.00 transaction fee when you pre-book the return visit. For families who might come back, that is quietly the best-value ticket of the two.

Frequently asked questions

Is Windsor Castle better than the Tower of London?

For a first trip to London, no. The Tower is central, open every day and includes the Crown Jewels and a guided tour in the price. Windsor is the better visit if you already know the Tower, want a day outside the city, or care more about royal tombs and state rooms than about regalia.

Can you do the Tower of London and Windsor Castle in one day?

We would not try. The Tower alone needs at least three hours, and Windsor needs a round trip of nearly two hours on top of its own visit. Fitting both into a single day means rushing the Tower and arriving at Windsor with the afternoon nearly gone.

How much does a family pay at the Tower of London compared with Windsor Castle?

A couple with two children in the 5 to 15 bracket pay £111.00 at the Tower and £96.00 at Windsor for admission booked in advance. Once travel is added, the Tower day comes to about £128.80 and the Windsor day to about £149.40, because Oyster and contactless are not valid to Windsor.

Which days is Windsor Castle closed?

Tuesdays and Wednesdays, right through the year, with two Tuesdays in December 2026 as the listed exceptions. Official royal business can shut it on other days with little warning. The Tower of London has no weekly closing day, although it opens an hour later on Sundays and Mondays.

Do I need to book tickets in advance for either?

For Windsor, yes, because the gate price is £4.00 higher per adult and busy dates can sell out. The Tower does not require it and will sell you a ticket at the window when you arrive, but Historic Royal Palaces suggests buying online during school holidays and other busy stretches.

Sources

• Historic Royal Palaces - Tower of London tickets and prices (checked September 2026)
• Historic Royal Palaces - Tower of London opening times (checked September 2026)
• Royal Collection Trust - Windsor Castle tickets, prices and opening times (checked September 2026)
• National Rail Enquiries - Times and fares, London Waterloo to Windsor & Eton Riverside (checked September 2026)
• South Western Railway - Trains to Windsor Castle (checked September 2026)
• Transport for London - Caps on pay as you go fares (checked September 2026)
• The Household Division - Changing the Guard calendar (checked September 2026)