The Day After the Coronation
The coronation of King Charles III was on the 6th of May 2023. We spent it in London, which is its own story. On the 7th, we drove out to Windsor.
A different kind of day
The contrast with the day before was startling. London had been grey and wet for the coronation itself — ceremonially correct, in a very British way. Windsor on the 7th was warm and clear, the kind of spring morning that feels like a reward for enduring whatever came before it. We parked up and headed straight for the Long Walk: the two-mile avenue of trees that runs from the castle gates down through Windsor Great Park, as straight and deliberate as anything the 17th century ever produced.
The park was full. Not crowded in an uncomfortable way, but genuinely, happily full — families with dogs, couples with picnic blankets spread out on the grass, children running in the sunshine. The coronation celebrations were spilling over into a second day, and nobody seemed in a particular hurry to go home. We weren’t either.
Two minutes’ warning
We were somewhere along the walk, enjoying the sun and not thinking about very much, when we heard someone nearby mention that William and Catherine were expected to come out. We didn’t take it too seriously. And then people started moving toward the road that runs alongside the path, slowly at first, and then with more purpose, and we followed, the way you always do in those situations.
What happened next took about two minutes. A small convoy of black cars came to a stop perhaps twenty metres from where we were standing. Police appeared from somewhere and organised the crowd into lines with a speed that suggested this was planned, even if it wasn’t announced. Metal barriers went up. And then the doors opened, and William and Catherine stepped out and walked directly toward the crowd.
They split up and worked separately — each moving along the line, stopping, talking, shaking hands, smiling. Not a brief wave from a distance. An actual conversation with whoever was in front of them. This went on for about twenty minutes. We were close enough to see their faces clearly. It was completely unscripted, genuinely warm, and one of the most unexpected things that has ever happened to us on an ordinary Sunday afternoon.
They got back in the cars and left, and the crowd stood around for a moment the way crowds do when something is suddenly over, and then gradually dispersed back to their picnics and their dogs and their walks.
The town had made an effort
The thing that stayed with me almost as much as the walkabout was how much effort had gone into the whole weekend at street level, quite separately from anything official.
We noticed it before we’d even reached the park. The postboxes near the castle had been given crochet toppers — handmade covers fitted over the top of the box. One was a deep purple cushion with a gold crown sitting on it, tassels at each corner, edged in white lace. Another had a whole crocheted family standing on it: a figure in a red uniform, a woman in a purple coat and hat, smaller figures in suits beside them, the lot mounted on purple and gold bunting. If you haven’t come across these before, they’re a very British habit — somebody local makes them, quietly, and puts them out for jubilees and coronations and Christmas. Nobody signs their name to it. Nobody official commissions them. They just appear.
Nearer the castle there was a dray out on the grass — a Windsor & Eton Brewery cart in green and red livery, barrels stacked on the back, pulled by two shire horses with white feathered legs. Both had been plaited and dressed in red, white and blue rosettes for the occasion, and they stood there entirely calm while people photographed them. Ian was delighted. I suspect he had already worked out where the brewery was.
The bakeries had gone all in too. One window was full of coronation doughnuts with names to match — a “Lovely Jubbly” piped with the British flag and topped with a gold-dusted white chocolate crown, a “Caramel Delevigne” next to it. Red, white and blue icing on things that don’t normally have icing on them at all. We stopped and looked longer than we needed to.
And later, walking back through the streets in the early evening, we passed a mounted police officer heading the other way. Her horse had a Union flag cut straight into the hair on her hindquarters — no dye, no colour, no covering of any kind. Somebody had clipped the pattern into her, the shorter hair catching the light differently against the brown, and they had taken real care getting the lines square. The horse was entirely unbothered, plodding along an ordinary suburban road past ordinary brick houses, wearing it like it was nothing.
The concert we could hear but not see
We went to find something to eat and a drink — Ian had already identified a brewery nearby, naturally — and then came back to the Long Walk later in the afternoon. By then, a stage had been set up for a special coronation concert: an invited event for guests of the King, so we couldn’t go in, but that didn’t matter much. Standing outside on the grass, we could hear everything — well-known voices carrying out over the park on a warm evening. And then, as it got darker, the drone show started. Hundreds of drones moving in formation overhead, forming shapes and patterns against the sky. We stood and watched until it was done.
Some days you plan carefully and they’re fine. Some days you just go for a walk and they turn into something else entirely.
Practical notes
- The Long Walk is free and always open. You don’t need a castle ticket to walk it — it runs from the castle gates straight down through the park.
- You can’t drive into the park. Only residents and staff are permitted. Park at one of the perimeter car parks instead; Review Ground (SL4 2BD) is the closest to the Long Walk end.
- Or just walk from town. The Long Walk starts a few minutes from the castle, so if you’ve come by train you don’t need a car at all.
- It’s two miles each way. Straight, flat and unshaded in parts — lovely on a warm day, long in the rain.
- Deer. The Deer Park sits alongside the walk; keep dogs on leads through that stretch.
Addresses
The Long Walk, Windsor Great Park
Windsor SL4 2HT
windsorgreatpark.co.uk
Open at all times. Free to enter.
Review Ground car park
Windsor SL4 2BD
Nearest parking to the Long Walk.
This was our fourth visit to Windsor. If you want the ordinary version of the town — the castle from the outside, the riverside walk, Eton — that’s in Windsor: The Town Behind the Castle. And the brewery Ian found is in his Windsor craft beer guide.
