Cumberland Lodge & Windsor Great Park

Cumberland Lodge is a château at Old Windsor, England, in the United Kingdom. The recorded building campaign dates from the 17th century. Its architecture is recorded as baroque architecture. The register records it as “Grade II listed building”. Details are drawn from Wikidata.

Occupying a serene elevated plateau in the southern expanse of Windsor Great Park, Cumberland Lodge was built in 1650 under the Commonwealth and served as the official residence of the Rangers of Windsor Great Park. In 1746, King George II appointed his son, Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, as Ranger, inaugurating a period of magnificent landscape transformation. The Duke collaborated with military draftsman and architect Thomas Sandby (later first Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy) to execute colossal hydraulic and landscape projects. Together they created Virginia Water by damming the Blacknest and Virginia brooks, constructing what was then the largest artificial lake in Britain, adorned with classical ruins imported from Roman Leptis Magna, grottoes, and waterfalls. Around the Lodge itself, grand axial avenues—including the royal Long Walk perspective and ancient oak savanna glades—preserve trees dating back to the Tudor and Plantagenet eras. The pleasure grounds feature formal lawns, mature specimen sweet chestnuts, and historic paddocks home to royal deer herds. Protected at Grade I under NHLE List Entry 1001436, the landscape around Cumberland Lodge embodies the quintessential English royal deer park, linking centuries of crown forest stewardship with Georgian landscape artistry.

Wikidata · Q1143701 — CC0 1.0

National Heritage List for England (Historic England) · 1001436 — Open Government Licence v3.0

Wikimedia Commons · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Cumberland-lodge.jpg — CC BY-SA 2.5

Discover the architecture and history of this place at Le Roi du Château.