Garter Day 2019

The Queen and members of The Royal Family are today attending a Garter Day service and ceremony at Windsor Castle.

New appointments to "The Garter" were invested in the Garter Throne Room and include a Lady Companion, athlete Lady Mary Peters, and a Knight Companion, the Marquess of Salisbury, a former Chairman of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Foundation.

The Knights are chosen from a variety of backgrounds, in recognition for public service.

Today, the Order includes the Queen, who is Sovereign of the Garter, several senior Members of the Royal Family including the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cambridge, and twenty-four knights chosen in recognition of their work.

The King of Spain and The King of the Netherlands also attended this year’s Garter Day, during which they were installed in St. George’s Chapel as Supernumerary, or ‘Stranger’, Knights of the Garter.

The King of Spain was appointed by Her Majesty on the occasion of the Spanish State Visit in July 2017, and The King of the Netherlands was appointed on the occasion of the Netherlands State Visit in October 2018.

St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle has been the spiritual home of the Order since its foundation.

In the Quire of the Chapel are brass stall plates recording the Order’s membership through the centuries.

Current Knights have their own allocated stall, with the bearer’s banner, crest, helmet and sword displayed above, reminiscent of the Order’s chivalric origins. These items are removed on the bearer’s death, but the stall plate remains.

In this picture Sir Winston Churchill (centre in robes) was photographed outside St George's Chapel at Windsor after his installation as a Knight of the Garter in 1954.

In this archive photograph King George V and Queen Mary are dressed in robes at a Garter Ceremony in Windsor.

In this photograph The Queen, then Princess Elizabeth walked in procession to mark the 600th anniversary of the foundation of the Order in 1948.

Find out more about Garter Day here.