Knyff was born in The Hague and had settled in England by 1681; he specialised in bird’s-eye views of English country houses, recording their architecture and agriculture with great attention to detail. In a letter of 9 January 1703 Knyff wrote, ‘I have done a great many [drawings] of Hampton Courte and Windsor for his Majesty [Queen Anne’s husband, Prince George of Denmark] which are not yet engraved’. This painting was not acquired for the Royal Collection until 1926 and no engraving of this composition survives, but in the absence of contradictory evidence it may be connected with these drawings referred to in 1703.

This date is certainly consistent with the topography of the castle and its surroundings. We see the Classical re-building of the upper ward, carried out by Hugh May for Charles II between 1672 and 1685, including the extension of the North terrace to the east (left as we look at it). Knyff’s view provides especially valuable insight into a moment in the story of the ground lying to the North of the Castle, between it and the river. This area was called the ‘Maastricht Garden’ after a re-enactment of the Siege of Maastricht, which took place here in 1674 a year after the real thing.

In 1698 William III decided to convert this area into a formal garden designed around a central canal taking its alignment from the Long Walk the far (South) side of the castle. He diverted the Windsor-Datchet road along the line of the river bank and enclosed the entire area with a wall, dated 1699; both these elements are visible here. The pattern of trees within the enclosed areas represents the blocking out of a formal garden by Henry Wise following a design from the Frenchman, Claude Desgots (Le Notre’s nephew). The garden was aligned North-South (towards us as we look at it) and was at least twice as long as wide (rather longer than it appears from this view-point). It awaits its basin in the centre and the customary finishing of a French-style formal garden - gravel walks, parterres and so on. This lay-out survived only a short period: it was replaced by something similar, but re-aligned and with a larger basin, in the last years of Queen Anne’s reign (1708-14), which was abandoned altogether upon the arrival of George I and left to decay into pasture.