El devastador incendio que dejó el castillo de Windsor en ruinas

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00:00Friday, 20 de November, 1992,

00:03a work light, which had been left too close to a curtain,

00:06started a fire inside the Queen's private chapel at Windsor Castle.

00:11Within minutes, the 300-year-old room was ablaze.

00:15The fire moved through the crimson drawing room in St. George's Hall

00:18and showed no signs of slowing.

00:23The following morning, the full scale of the disaster became apparent.

00:26One hundred rooms had been damaged, nine completely gutted.

00:34In reality, the Queen doesn't own Windsor or any of the other royal palaces and estates.

00:41After her coronation, she, like every monarch for the last 200 years,

00:45signed a contract handing over all crown lands and buildings

00:49and their vast rental income to the government for the rest of her life.

00:52In return, she receives a large annual allowance.

01:01So legally, Windsor is the taxpayer's responsibility.

01:06But with the family's reputation at its lowest levels in a generation,

01:10the public didn't care.

01:11I used to like them a lot at one time, but now each time you read all what's going on,

01:18you think, well, you've gone right off of them.

01:19I think a whole lot of them should be strung up.

01:22Who do you think should pay for the restoration?

01:24Not the public.

01:25Why should we pay?

01:26Government don't pay, we pay.

01:29The Queen realised she needed to act.

01:31She needed to rebuild both Windsor and the reputation of the monarchy, and fast.

01:36A week after the fire, the Queen called a secret meeting of key family members and trusted advisers.

01:43They formed what's known as the Way Ahead Group.

01:48The meeting of the Way Ahead Group ended with a plan.

01:54Insisting that the taxpayers foot the bill for the fire was now out of the question.

01:58Instead, the Queen offered to raise the money by opening up her London headquarters to paying visitors.

02:03In August 1993, just eight months after the fire at Windsor Castle,

02:11Buckingham Palace opened its doors to paying visitors for the first time.

02:14Tickets please and a guidebook please.

02:17It was an enormous success.

02:20Nearly 400,000 people paid $10 a ticket to take the tour.

02:26Money was pouring into the Windsor Restoration Fund.

02:29Two years after the devastating fire at Windsor Castle, a huge restoration program began.

02:36And hundreds of craftsmen were working to return it to its former glory.

02:40Five years to the day after the fire that had destroyed it, the restoration of Windsor Castle was complete.