Erection date: 2/12/1987
This oak tree, planted with soil from Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the New World, commemorates the bicentenary of the constitution of the United States of America. It stands in acknowledgement that the ideals of liberty and justice embodied in the constitution trace their lineage through institutions of English law to the Magna Carta, sealed at Runnymede on June 15th 1215. Planted December 2, 1987, by John O. Marsh, Jr. Secretary of the Army of the United States of America.
The National Trust
Virginians seem keen on sending us their soil: in 1921 they gave us a statue of one of their great men, George Washington, along with some dirt on which to stand.
Site: John F. Kennedy memorial - Runnymede (3 memorials)
SL4, Windsor Road
The two trees are down the bottom of the hill. You see them as you walk between the JFK memorial and the Magna Carta memorial.
In May 1965 this acre of Crown land was given to the American people in perpetuity under the control and management of the Kennedy Memorial Trust. The Magna Carta connection made Runnymede particularly appropriate for the Kennedy memorial.
But prior to that relatively small gift, this whole hillside was given in 1963 by the local Council to the National Trust. An American family gave the adjacent meadows to the National Trust in 1929 and we feel the two gifts are probably connected in some way. See Lady Fairhaven for more information.
This memorial was restored following damage caused by a bomb in a 1968 anti-Vietnam protest.
