Windsor Great Park

About:

Windsor Great Park is a vast and carefully managed landscape that sits directly behind Windsor Castle, offering some of the most expansive and quietly impressive green space in the south of England. Covering thousands of acres, the park feels less like a single destination and more like a sequence of connected environments, shifting gradually from formal avenues to open woodland and wide grassland.

One of the most striking features is The Long Walk, a straight, tree-lined avenue stretching for nearly three miles from Windsor Castle to the Copper Horse statue. This view is deliberately theatrical, designed to emphasise scale and symmetry, with the castle framed at one end and open countryside unfolding at the other. Walking here gives a strong sense of procession and space, particularly early in the morning or late in the day when the light is lower and the crowds thin.

Beyond the Long Walk, the park opens into more natural landscapes. Ancient oak trees, rolling grassland and woodland paths dominate the central areas, where herds of red and fallow deer roam freely. Seeing deer at close range is one of the park’s defining experiences and reinforces the sense that this is a working royal landscape rather than a purely decorative park.

The eastern side of Windsor Great Park is more formal and horticultural. The Savill Garden is a highlight, carefully planted to provide colour and structure throughout the year. Winding paths lead through themed areas, including rose gardens, woodland glades and ornamental ponds, offering a more intimate contrast to the open scale elsewhere in the park.

Historically, the park has been shaped by centuries of royal use, originally serving as hunting ground and later as a landscaped estate reflecting changing tastes in land management. Unlike many urban parks, it retains a feeling of purpose and continuity, with long sightlines and controlled planting reinforcing its designed character.

Today, Windsor Great Park is used in many ways. Customers walk, cycle, picnic and explore, often spending hours moving between its different zones. Its appeal lies in variety and restraint. Rather than overwhelming with features, it offers space, calm and gradual change, making it as rewarding for short visits as for long, unhurried days spent wandering its paths.