Windsor Great Park, the only Royal Park managed by The Crown Estate, was once part of a vast Norman hunting forest which was enclosed in the late 13th century. The 2,020 hectares (5,000 acres) of parkland, which includes a Deer Park, is a varied landscape of formal avenues, gardens, woodland and open grassland. The antiquity of the landscape is enhanced by the scattering of great ancient oaks for which the Great Park and its forest are renowned.
Situated in the south-east corner of the Great Park this much visited area provides rich and varied scenery. Virginia Water lake and its surrounding Georgian landscape of woodland, glades and forest rides is the centrepiece within which two internationally famous gardens – the Savill and Valley Gardens – were created in the twentieth century.