Among the improvements that have been carried out at Windsor during the
autumn, has been an entire alteration in the draining of the Home Park
about Frogmore. New drains have been laid, and the waste earth has been
used to level the ground. This portion of the Royal domain was almost
wild at the beginning of the present reign. It consisted of fields, with
low hedges and deep ditches, and was intersected by a road, on which
stood several cottages and a public-house. It was quite an eyesore, and
Prince Albert was at his wit’s end to know how to convert it into a park
and exclude the public, as before this could be done, it was necessary to
make a new road in place of the one it was desired to abolish, and
altogether a large outlay was inevitable; and even in those days, it was
out of the question to apply to Parliament for the amount required,
which, I believe, was about £80,000.
The difficulty, however, was solved in rather a strange way. In the
early days of railroads they were looked upon as nuisances, and the
authorities at Windsor Castle were firmly resolved that no line should
approach the Royal borough, in which resolution they were warmly
supported by the equally stupid and short-sighted managers of Eton
College. Although the inhabitants sighed for a railway, none was brought
nearer than Slough. At this moment, when the park question was being
agitated, the South Western Directors brought forward a proposition that
they should make a line into Windsor, running along one side of the Home
Park, and right under the Castle. This audacious idea was regarded with
indignation at the Castle, until a hint was received that possibly, if
Royal interest were forthcoming to support the plan, the Company might be
able to facilitate the proposed alterations; and it then came out,
strangely enough, they had fixed the precise sum needed (£80,000) as
compensation for the disturbance of the Royal property. No more was
heard of the objections to the scheme, which had been so vehemently
denounced a few days before, but, no sooner did it transpire that the
South-Western plan was not opposed by the Castle interest than down came
the Great-Western authorities in a fever of indignation, for it appeared
they had received an explicit promise that, if Windsor was ever
desecrated by a railway, they should have the preference. So resolute
was their attitude, that so far as I remember, the sitting of Parliament
was actually protracted in order that their Bill might be passed; not
that they got it without paying, for they gave £20,000 for an old stable
and yard which were required for their station, and which happened to
stand on Crown property. Things were sometimes managed strangely enough
in those days.
—_Truth_, Dec. 29, 1881.