Runnymede Approx
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Notes for History Walk - Runnymede approx. 2.5 miles – some up and down – can be muddy Start/End TW20 0LB – Memorial Car Park (optional short extension) Air Forces Memorial (1) The memorial was designed by Sir Edward Maufe with sculpture by Vernon Hill. The engraved glass and painted ceilings were designed by John Hutton, and the poem engraved on the gallery window was written by Paul H Scott. It was the first post-World War II building to be listed for architectural merit. It lists the names of nearly 20,000 people who have no known grave and forms a quadrangle with two curving arms overlooking the view from Cooper's Hill. A central structure, resembling an airfield's control tower, provides a high vantage point from its roof with panoramic views in all directions. The tower has statues depicting Courage, Victory and Justice. The roof of the memorial looks over the River Thames and Runnymede Meadow, where the Magna Carta was sealed by King John in 1215. Most of north, west, and central London can be seen to the right from the viewpoint; such monuments as the London Eye and the arch of Wembley Stadium are visible on clear days. Windsor Castle and the surrounding area can be seen to the left. Langham Pond (2) The pond and its surrounding alluvial meadows on chalk represent a habitat unique in southern England. The pond is the remains of an oxbow lake, formed when a meander of the River Thames was bypassed. The pond contains all four British duckweeds, three nationally scarce plants and a species of fly which has been found nowhere else in Britain, Cerodontha ornata. This was found by a colleague of a member of the Wokingham U3A Photography group – you are unlikely to see the insect as it is very tiny. Immortalised in Rudyard Kipling's poem 'The Reeds of Runnymede' Runnymede Races (3) After WW1 the government decided to sell off some Crown lands, including Runnymede. David Lloyd George proposed a fixed funfair on the site but Lady Fairhaven's purchase (of which more later) stopped it. This is not such a strange idea given the history of its use. Runnymede had been used for fairs and horse-racing in the 18th & 19th centuries. The first meeting was in 1770 (it moved there from Egham) and was a 3-day event in September with first prize of £50 which is roughly £89,500 today. It was a popular event, though not without its dangers – one poor chap from Windsor was killed in 1773 and another trampled (but survived) in 1778. As people were carrying money to bet and for the various booths and other entertainment, crime was also an issue with robberies by “footpads” (or muggings as we’d call them). There were also arguments over substitutions of horses and other ‘cheating’ with two competitors banned. It did however have royal patronage in the late 18th and early 19th centuries with an evening ball; Queen Victoria was invited but did not attend. It came to an end in a dispute between the race authorities and the local constabulary; the police withdrew support in 1886 causing a flurry of complaint letters in the press. More Information: http://eghammuseum.org/egham-races/ Magna Carta & Monuments (4) Magna Carta – King John applied his seal in 1215. Some dispute as to whether it was here or across the river in Ankerwycke. There is a Yew tree at Ankerwycke which is said to have been there in 1215 (and probably pre-dates the Magna Carta by several centuries). First drafted by Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. King John reneged on the agreement almost immediately afterwards, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War. Of the 63 original clauses only 4 remain in force today 1, 9 & 39/40: I. FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever. IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover, We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs. XXIX. NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be deprived of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgement of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. XL. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right. Writ in water (4a) Opened June 2018, designed by Mark Wallinger. Writ in Water takes its name from the inscription on John Keats’ gravestone, which reads, ‘Here lies one whose name was writ in water’. During June 2019 Writ in Water achieved a RIBA South East Award, an award which recognises outstanding architectural work. Tends to split opinion – a bit of a “Marmite” monument. American Bar Association (4b) Erected 1957, this memorial is of a domed classical style containing a pillar of English granite on which is inscribed "To commemorate Magna Carta, symbol of Freedom Under Law" There are also several ceremonial trees planted nearby. The Jurors (4c) 12 bronze chairs – erected June 2015 (800 anniversary of Magna Carta seal) The sculptor Hew Locke created 12 bronze chairs each of which is decorated with symbols of past and present struggles for freedom, equality and the rule of law. The artist / sculptor invites participants to sit, reflect upon and discuss the themes represented. The back of one chair is a representation of nelson Mandela's prison cell on Robben Island, South Africa. The portrait seen on another chair is of Lillie Lenton wearing insignia related to the imprisonment and activism of suffragettes. See https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/features/what-does-the-jurors-represent for more details Lutyens Lodges (5) The story of the kiosks begins in 1929 when Lady Fairhaven bought the historic Runnymede Meadow, which was over 188 acres in size. American by birth, Lady Fairhaven was the wife of Urban Hanlon Broughton, an English engineer and later a Member of Parliament. When he died in 1929, Urban Broughton had been pending an elevation to the peerage. Since he died before the process was complete, King George V proclaimed that his wife should enjoy the fruits of her husband’s labour, and she was subsequently named Lady Fairhaven Sir Edwin Lutyens’s memorial lodges at the Magna Carta ‘freedom’ meadow by the Thames were designed for Cara, Lady Fairhaven, to mark her family’s gift of Runnymede to the nation, but they are part of a small gem of a landscape scheme by Sir Edwin that must rank as one of his most seen but least understood commissions. The wherewithal came from Cara Fairhaven’s American fortune. Her father, Henry Huttleston Rogers grew up in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and by dint of hard work and inventing a gizmo for separating naphtha from crude, he rose to the top of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil: in the 1893 Wall Street crash he rescued Mark Twain’s publishing company out of love for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and perhaps The Prince and the Pauper gave him the taste for English medieval romance? Rogers died in 1909, and Cara and her husband, Urban Hanlon Broughton, who had worked for her father, came to live at Englefield Green, on the edge of Windsor Great Park. Their philanthropic public spiritedness culminated in the purchased of Runnymede meadow, but as Urban Broughton died early in 1929, it was given to the nation ‘in perpetual memory’ of him. Lutyens’s scheme for which the drawing survives, includes the Egham roundabout (yes, he designed a traffic roundabout!) with the road sweeping over his Bell-Weir Bridge (now carrying the M25), and the A308 curving through Runnymede, marked by the entrance kiosks, with the lodges at the far, Old Windsor, end. The kiosks of red brick and Portland stone have their pedigree in his best garden buildings; the lodges, reminiscent of Marsh Court’s lodges, are white, with elegant double-height sash windows and huge roofs. north Lodge entrance has the Fairhaven arms; it now houses the national Trust estate office and has good surviving interiors. South Lodge has a tearoom and art gallery. not entirely popular with the locals – some of whom saw them as infringement of common rights. They were sprayed with creosote on the night before formal opening by the Prince of Wales and, despite much shifting of foliage at the last minute, this couldn’t be entirely disguised. JFK Memorial (6) In 1964 the government proposed giving an acre of Runnymede to the US as a permanent memorial to Kennedy. Unfortunately, they hadn’t asked the nT who, under the terms of the acquisition from Lady Fairhaven, were not permitted to give it to another owner! The government purchased 3 acres nearby (not the 1 acre stated on the stone itself) and donated this.