Travellers move on after setting up camp outside Windsor Castle
Many around the country can bear witness to how difficult it can be to remove unwelcome visitors from private land or local parks. Not so for the Queen.
It took police and Crown Estate officials just a couple of hours to get a group of gypsies who had pitched their caravans in the grounds of Windsor Great Park, yards from the monarch's residence, to leave.
Rather than being forced to go to court to obtain an eviction notice, the officials managed to persuade the group to "get off one's land" rather swiftly.
The dozen families moved a couple of miles away and stopped at a council recreation park on the edge of Windsor, where they are planning to remain until ordered to move on.
Questions are being raised as to how the group, which included around a dozen families with young children, managed to drive onto the Long Walk, running through the Great Park to the gates of Windsor Castle, so easily.
The families managed to drive their vehicles onto the paved road of the Long Walk, evading the few low bollards bordering the grassland that is popular with walkers and runners.
Dai Davies, the former head of the Metropolitan Police's Royal Protection Squad, said: "The fact they managed to get onto the Long Walk without difficulty shows the naivety of those protecting the area. They should have anticipated this sort of thing.
"It's a potentially serious security issue. You can't have a group of people pitch up and congregate like this so close to a royal residence. It could have been anyone with threatening intentions."
The families had driven from Dartford, in Kent, and stopped on the Long Walk at around 6pm. While they were there, Prince Andrew drove past in his Range Rover but did not seem particularly concerned about their presence.
After leaving at around 8pm, the group stopped at a park and playing fields in Hanover Way, in the Windsor suburb of Dedworth, apparently breaking a couple of locks to gain access.
They were spoken to by police, who handed out a code of conduct, welfare information with the details of local GP surgeries and hospitals and Covid test kits.
A Windsor and Maidenhead Council spokesman said: "Welfare visits are being undertaken before any decisions are made on how to proceed. The situation will continue to be actively monitored to ensure that the impact on local residents and the environment is minimised."
One of the gypsies, Caroline Smith, a 39-year-old mother of five, told The Telegraph: "We'll stay here as long as we can. All the permanent caravan sites are full. There's never been enough of them for us. But we'll leave this place as we found it, nice and tidy.
"We never planned to stay long outside Windsor Castle. We just stopped there for a break, to give the kids something to eat and the dogs some water. The police didn't have to do anything, they knew we'd soon be moving on."
Back in Windsor Great Park, locals predicted it would take the council rather longer to move the group on than it had taken Her Majesty.
"They'll be there for a while, you can bet on it” said Jenny, a young mother having a picnic with her baby. "It's one thing stopping at a local park. It's quite another pitching up on the Queen's estate."
