Bachelors’ Acre

Bachelors Acre is now officially a ‘Town Green’. There have been celebrations there to mark the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 2002 and the Diamond Jubilee in 2012. It survives as an open space due to the tireless efforts of Miss Doris Mellor, MBE (1894-1981), who, with the support of the Windsor and Eton Society, prevented planners from turning it into a multi-storey car park in 1972. Miss Mellor researched the history with great diligence and found the necessary evidence to convince the courts that Bachelors Acre should never be developed.

The area was first mentioned in a town plan dated 1615 as ‘Bachelors Acre’ and in a lease of 1629 granted to John Fishbourne of New Windsor: ‘The Provost of Our Blessed Lady of Eaton in Windsor’ leasing him ‘three acres of arable land in a field called The Worth, adjoining at one side to pitts called Bachelors Acres.’

Bachelors Acre was a place of recreation for the bachelors of Windsor, hence the name.