Windsor Great Park

April 23:  Today was a 'great' walk in and around Windsor Great Park, the extensive land holdings that are south of Windsor Castle and owned/managed by the royal family/government.  To get the statistics out of the way first, we walked 13.5 miles in just over 4 hours.

We had a partly cloudy day with some sun and no rain, but a bit cool, in the fifties.  It was a good day for walking.  We started out on the "Long Walk," a 2.3-mile straight promenade that runs between Windsor Castle and Snow Hill (The Copper Horse statue).  It is paved, used by lots of runners, walkers and strollers, with no bicycles allowed.  There was an occasional warden patrol car.

Long Walk Northward

Long Walk Southward

Looking back from Snow Hill to Windsor Castle

The Copper Horse

We then traversed to Savill Gardens, one of two gardens in the park.  Not much was blooming so we passed on going in, but looked through the gift shop and had a snack in the restaurant.  The building has a wave shaped roof that is framed in larch, all harvested from the park grounds.

Larch-framed roof

Virginia Water was next.  It is a man-made lake, first dammed in 1750s and re-built shortly after a flood washed out the first dam, by King George III (his "workers" one presumes).

The Cascades created by dam

We made it to the outskirts of Ascot, turned north along a Park access road to "The Village," bypassing the Jubilee Statue and then to Queen Anne's Ride, a 2-mile straight bridleway back to Windsor.  Prince Philip "planted the 1,000 trees along the bridleway in 1992."  The last mile of our walk was along King's Road directly to our cottage.

300-year old oak tree and perspective - that's a lot of board feet

We passed in and out of the park numerous times, thereby seeing the following gates - Doubles, Bishops, Cumberland, Blacknest, Ascot, Prince Consort's and Queen Anne's.  We saw large herds of deer, many pheasants, a couple of hawks, 2 green parrots, a hare and a variety of little birds.  There were lots of families, kids on scooters (2, 3 and 4-wheeled) and small dogs chasing each other and balls.