Things to do in Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead

LEGOLAND Windsor Resort is one of the UK's most popular family theme parks, located near Windsor in Berkshire and built around the iconic LEGO brick brand. The park features over 55 rides, shows and attractions themed around LEGO sets and characters, with dedicated areas including LEGO City, LEGO Ninjago World, LEGO Friends Heartlake City and a waterpark. The resort attracts millions of visitors annually and is particularly suited to families with children aged between two and twelve years. On-site hotels allow guests to extend their stay in a fully LEGO-themed environment. The park's proximity to Windsor Castle, the Royal Windsor attractions and the broader Thames Valley heritage makes LEGOLAND a natural part of a longer family holiday in this corner of southeast England.

The Legoland Windsor Hill Train is a scenic miniature railway attraction located within the grounds of Legoland Windsor Resort, one of the United Kingdom's most popular family theme parks. Situated in Windsor, Berkshire, the Hill Train serves as both a practical transportation link within the resort and an enjoyable ride in its own right, ferrying guests up and down the sloping terrain of the park's landscape. The attraction is particularly valued by families with younger children and those who may find the inclines of the park challenging to navigate on foot, making it a functional yet entertaining feature of the overall Legoland experience. It connects different levels of the park, offering riders brief but pleasant views across the resort's themed areas and the surrounding countryside. Legoland Windsor itself opened in 1996 on the site of the former Windsor Safari Park, which had operated from 1969 until 1992. The resort was developed by the Lego Group to bring its beloved construction-toy brand to life in a theme park setting, following the success of the original Legoland in Billund, Denmark. The Hill Train, as an internal transport ride, was incorporated into the park's infrastructure to help guests manage the naturally undulating ground of the site, which sits on a hillside within Windsor Great Park's broader landscape. Over the years, like many elements of Legoland, it has been refreshed and themed to align with the park's signature colourful, brick-built aesthetic. In terms of its physical character, the Hill Train is a gentle, open-sided or semi-enclosed miniature railway that runs along a dedicated track, offering a smooth and unhurried journey. The ride is characterised by the cheerful, primary-coloured Lego branding that permeates every corner of the resort, with the trains and station areas typically decorated in red, yellow, and blue liveries consistent with the park's identity. The sounds onboard are a gentle rumble of the carriages on the rails, punctuated by the ambient noise of the wider park — children's laughter, distant ride music, and the occasional recorded announcement. It is a calming interlude amid the busier attractions and provides a moment to take in the park from a slightly elevated perspective. The surrounding landscape is that of the Legoland Windsor Resort itself, a roughly 150-acre site nestled on the edge of Windsor, Berkshire. The park sits close to Windsor Castle, one of the most iconic royal residences in the world, and is adjacent to the vast and beautiful Windsor Great Park. The broader area is characterised by ancient woodland, open parkland, and the gentle topography of the Thames Valley. Outside the park's perimeter, the town of Windsor offers a rich variety of attractions including the Long Walk, Frogmore House, and the River Thames itself. The proximity to both royal heritage and natural green space makes the wider Windsor area one of the most visited regions in England. For visitors planning a trip, Legoland Windsor is accessible by road via the M4 motorway (junction 6) and the M3 (junction 3), with the resort providing large on-site car parks. By public transport, Windsor can be reached by train from London Waterloo or London Paddington, with shuttle bus services running to the resort from Windsor town centre during the operating season. The Hill Train is included within the general Legoland admission price and requires no separate ticket, though visitors should be aware that like all internal rides it may have its own queue during peak periods. The resort operates seasonally, typically from mid-March through to early November, with selected dates in the winter for festive events. The best times to visit to avoid the largest crowds are weekdays during school term time, or early mornings at the start of the operating day. One of the more charming aspects of the Hill Train is simply its role as a quiet vantage point in a park that is otherwise dominated by louder, faster, more stimulating attractions. For grandparents, toddlers, or visitors who simply want a moment to breathe and watch the Miniland models and themed zones drift past, the Hill Train offers something genuinely restful. It is a small reminder that the best-designed theme parks include not just thrills but moments of gentle wonder, a philosophy that Legoland has generally embraced well. The train's existence also reflects the practical challenge the park's designers faced in building an accessible, inclusive resort on naturally difficult terrain — a solution that turned a logistical necessity into an attraction in its own right.

Windsor Great Park is one of the finest royal parks in Britain, a 5,000-acre landscape of ancient woodland, formal gardens, a long avenue and the Virginia Water lake that extends south from Windsor Castle through the Berkshire and Surrey countryside in a designed landscape reflecting the ambitions and tastes of successive royal patrons from the medieval period to the present day. The park is open to the public and provides one of the finest and most accessible combinations of natural and designed landscape available near London. The Long Walk, a three-mile avenue of plane trees extending from the George IV Gate at Windsor Castle to the equestrian statue of George III at Snow Hill, is one of the most impressive formal landscape features in the royal parks, its alignment providing a direct visual connection between the castle and the park landscape that was established in the reign of Charles II. The view along the Long Walk from the statue back to the castle silhouette is one of the most reproduced images of Windsor. The Savill Garden within the park, established in the 1930s and extended over the following decades, is one of the finest ornamental gardens in Britain, its collection of rhododendrons, azaleas, roses and herbaceous plants providing excellent seasonal displays throughout the year. The Valley Garden adjacent provides a more naturalistic complement to the Savill Garden's formal qualities. The Virginia Water lake, created in the eighteenth century, provides the principal water feature and the lakeside walk is one of the most popular routes in the park, the ruins of Roman columns brought from Libya adding an unexpected archaeological element to the landscape.

Windsor Castle in Berkshire is the largest and oldest occupied castle in the world, a royal residence that has been continuously inhabited since William the Conqueror built the original fortification in the 1070s, and the weekend home of the British royal family throughout its history. The castle complex covers approximately 13 acres and contains the magnificent State Apartments with their exceptional collections of paintings, furniture and decorative arts, St George's Chapel which is one of the finest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in England and the burial place of ten monarchs, and the historical exhibition spaces that interpret the castle's thousand-year history. The castle is open to visitors when not in use by the royal family and is one of the most visited heritage sites in Britain. The surrounding Windsor Great Park provides extensive parkland walking, and the historic town of Windsor with its shops, restaurants and the Eton College connection provides a comprehensive visitor destination.