The Art of Conversation on the Windsor Estate
Updated: 9 minutes ago
We pause as often as we move.
From the carriage, there is time to take in the Windsor Estate: its sweeping landscape, its buildings and the details you might otherwise pass by.
Then someone asks a question, and the conversation takes us somewhere unexpected.
It might begin with a royal residence or a deer grazing nearby. It could lead to a Windsor coachman, a carriage-driving competition with the Duke of Edinburgh, or the day my father persuaded me to hide my face from a crowd of photographers.
There is no set script. The estate gives us a place to begin; our guests help decide where the story goes.
Time to take it all in
In September, we welcomed the senior leadership team of a pharmaceutical company.
Afterwards, their CFO told me he hadn’t thought about work for two hours. He had been absorbed by the estate and the conversation, and, as he explained, that was quite rare for him.
That is part of what makes a visit different. Travelling by horse and carriage gives you time to look around, ask questions and enjoy the company of the people beside you.
We pause to absorb the landscape and talk about what we see. Some conversations stay close to Windsor’s history; others take a direction nobody could have planned.
One private family visit guest described another visit this way:
“Evensong in St George’s Chapel with the choir boys literally singing into our ears from the pew behind ours, the list goes on, all treasured memories. Then there is the addition of endless fascinating stories about their life on the estate; that alone would have made the day.”
Stories from the carriage
My grandfather drove on the estate, my father spent time on his carriages and his own, and I grew up on those carriages and around their horses. Our family’s connection with Windsor has given me a way of seeing the estate, and a collection of stories that reaches well beyond its familiar landmarks.
My father, John Seear, spent more than fifty years working as a Windsor coachman. He drove Her Majesty’s carriages, drove with the Duke of Edinburgh at competitions, and undertook some ambitious charity journeys. On one, he drove a carriage more than 350 miles from Windsor almost to Land’s End in five days.
Guests often want to know about the horses, the carriages and the people my father encountered. Their questions bring out stories that are unlikely to appear in a guidebook, although some may make it into the book I am writing.
My father learned the Windsor carriage trade from coachman George Paget. In time, he took on George’s 1860 Landau and his historic Hackney carriage licence. Our research has uncovered newspaper articles and photographs showing the working lives of Windsor’s carriages and coachmen, including some lively disagreements.
I would sometimes do my own research and question my father’s version of events. His response was ready:
“Well, whose stories do you prefer, mine or Mr Google’s?”
A question by the chapel
Recently, as we passed the Royal Chapel, a conversation turned to the late Queen Mother. I remembered an occasion when my father and I went there to pay our respects before the state funeral, along with other members of the estate community.
We had dressed very smartly and arrived in my grandfather’s old Bentley. As we drove through the gates, we found ourselves surrounded by photographers. Camera flashes filled the windows.
“Cover your face! Cover your face!” my father exclaimed.
So we did, just as I had seen celebrities do in the newspapers. Naturally, this only encouraged the photographers. The flashes came faster.
Once we were through, I turned to him.
“Why on earth did we do that? We’re nobody.”
“Precisely,” he replied. “It’ll take them weeks to work that out.”
I like to imagine someone studying those photographs, trying to identify the elderly gentleman in the Bentley and his passenger. A distant royal relative, perhaps?
No. Just a Windsor coachman and his daughter, with my father thoroughly enjoying himself at the photographers’ expense.
Our guest loved that story. I had not planned to tell it. We happened to pass the chapel, a question was asked, and there was my father again, making someone smile.
A different conversation every time
The business has changed over the generations. Today, a wider team helps us care for the horses and welcome our guests, while the knowledge passed down through the family continues to shape the experience.
I travel through places where I sat beside both my father and my grandfather. Sometimes a view brings back a conversation. Sometimes I hear myself telling a story and remember where I first heard it.
The story continues with our head coachman, too. His children drive out with him, and through him, his eldest daughter, nine-year-old Bonnie, is getting to know my stories as well.
The history gives us a starting point. The guests, their questions and the stories we share make each visit different.
Some of that knowledge belongs in the book I am writing. Some is best shared in conversation, travelling through the place where it happened.
