Windsor Great Park

Listen first. Gravel crunches under your shoes. A wood pigeon calls from somewhere deep in an old oak. Far off, a dog barks, and the sound carries across open grass for a long time before it fades. The air smells of cut turf, damp bark and, in autumn, fallen leaves. This is Windsor Great Park, a landscape of nearly five thousand acres that sits right at the edge of Windsor Castle, and it feels much bigger than that number suggests.

Before it was a park, this was forest. In the Middle Ages, Windsor Forest covered a huge area of this part of England. It was a royal hunting ground, reserved for the king and his guests. The word forest did not mean dense woodland back then. It meant land placed under special forest law, where deer belonged to the Crown. Over the centuries, part of that land was enclosed and kept close to the castle. That enclosed land became the Great Park.

If you stand at the castle end of the Long Walk, you see the clearest trace of royal planning. This straight avenue runs for about two and a half miles, close to four kilometres, from the castle gates to a distant hill. King Charles the Second ordered it laid out in the late seventeenth century. He lined it with elm trees. Those elms are long gone. They were replaced in the twentieth century, mostly with horse chestnuts and London plane trees, so the trees you see today are younger than they look.

Here is something many visitors miss. Turn around and look back toward the castle. The Long Walk was designed to frame the building, not only to lead away from it. From the far end, the castle sits perfectly at the head of the avenue, small and sharp on the horizon. This is the view kings wanted. It showed the castle as the centre of everything, with the land running out from it in a straight, controlled line.

At the far end of the Long Walk, on Snow Hill, a large statue rises against the sky. Locals call it the Copper Horse. It shows King George the Third on horseback, dressed in the style of a Roman emperor. His son, King George the Fourth, commissioned it, and it was finished in the early nineteenth century. Despite the nickname, the statue is made of bronze, not copper. It is worth the long walk up the slope. From the base, you can see the castle and, on a clear day, a wide stretch of the Thames Valley.

Now look at the grass around Snow Hill. You may see deer. The park has a herd of red deer, the largest native land mammal in Britain. Red deer had disappeared from this park for some time, and a herd was brought back in the late twentieth century. Today they graze inside a large fenced area called the Deer Park. In autumn, during the rut, the stags roar to compete for mates. It is a deep, rough sound, a little like a cow and a lion at once. Keep your distance, especially in that season.

The trees here deserve a slow look. Windsor Great Park is home to a remarkable number of veteran oaks. Some of them are many centuries old. Their trunks are wide, hollow, and twisted, and their bark is thick with moss and fungus. These old trees support rare beetles, bats and fungi. Ecologists value them highly, because ancient trees like these are now rare across Europe. When you pass one, you are looking at a living thing that was already old when the Long Walk was planted.

Head south and the landscape changes again. The land becomes softer and more wooded, and water appears. This is Virginia Water, a large ornamental lake. It was created in the mid-eighteenth century under the Duke of Cumberland, a son of King George the Second, who served as Ranger of the park. The lake was later enlarged. Today a path runs right around it, and the walk is long enough to fill a gentle afternoon.

Near the edge of the lake, you will find a surprise. Stone columns stand among the trees, some upright, some carrying a broken beam across the top. They look like the ruins of a Roman temple. In a sense they are. These columns came from Leptis Magna, an ancient Roman city on the coast of what is now Libya. They were shipped to England in the early nineteenth century and arranged here as a romantic ruin under King George the Fourth. It was a fashion of the age, to build ruins on purpose.

Not far away, the lake spills over a cascade. Water falls over a wall of large, rough stones and runs on toward a stream below. On a quiet day, this is one of the loudest places in the park. The sound of the falling water fills the small valley. It is a good place to stop, rest your legs, and watch the light move on the surface of the water.

The park is also famous for its gardens. The Savill Garden was created in the twentieth century by Sir Eric Savill, who managed the park for the Crown. It is a planned garden with separate areas for different seasons, and it needs a separate ticket. The nearby Valley Gardens are more open and wilder, with large rhododendrons and azaleas on sloping ground. In spring, those slopes turn pink, red and white. In autumn, the maples and other trees turn copper and gold.

It is easy to forget that this is still a working royal estate. The Crown Estate manages the land. There are farms, private lodges, and a small royal chapel inside the park. Some areas are closed to the public, and you will see quiet gates and private roads. Most of the open grass and woodland, though, is free to walk. Families picnic here. Runners pass you on the Long Walk. Horse riders cross the paths. It is a royal landscape that is also a local park.

Before you leave, stop for a moment wherever you are standing. Look at the shape of the land around you. Almost nothing here is accidental. The avenues, the lake, the ruins, even many of the views were planned by people who lived centuries ago. Yet the deer, the old oaks and the birds carry on with their own lives. As you walk back, listen again for the gravel under your feet, and watch the castle grow larger at the end of the Long Walk.