Discover Windsor

A royal town on the Thames, in the shadow of the Castle

Windsor sits on the south bank of the River Thames in Berkshire, about twenty miles west of London and a short hop from Heathrow, wrapped around the walls of Windsor Castle. The Castle has been a royal residence for over nine hundred years and remains a working one, which gives the town its particular character: a compact, handsome, slightly formal place used to visitors, with the Household Cavalry clattering through and the Changing of the Guard drawing a crowd on ceremony days. The old centre is small and very walkable, its two railway stations both a few minutes from the Castle gates.

The reason to give Windsor more than a rushed Castle visit is everything around it. The Long Walk and Windsor Great Park spread south from the Castle into thousands of acres of former royal hunting forest, with a resident deer herd and the ornamental Savill Garden. The Thames threads through the town with boat trips and riverside pubs, and Eton lies just across the bridge, its famous college and unspoilt high street a short stroll away. Add Legoland for families, the racing at nearby Ascot, and Magna Carta country at Runnymede a few miles downriver, and a town most people treat as a half-day out will happily fill two.