Runnymede Discovered!

The school visits have started! 

It is delightful to see groups of youngsters so enjoying the historic spaces of Runnymede’s meadows and woods.  

This is literally a hands on experience.  How exciting to see small hands exploring the etched stone of the Magna Carta and J F Kennedy memorials, the texture of oak tree bark and hunting for mini beats in the hedgerows and meadow edges.  

Local families will also have the opportunity to explore Runnymede too, with two group tours timed for half term (Tuesday, 29th October).  Details on how to book will soon be available on http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/runnymede/things-to-see-and-do/events/

                    

Digging and Delving

Great news - Landscapes Live! careers off in a whole new direction 

It all started, innocently enough, with a bit of research into the Kennedy Memorial Archives to find some new resources for the school visits.  Within days, Annabel Downs, the project volunteer researcher, was uncovering some serious new stuff on Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe and the design of the J F Kennedy memorial. 

Annabel writes:

I’ve been interested in Jellicoe since I first pulled out one of his drawings from his plan chest at the Landscape Institute library, and there is nothing quite like looking closely at one of Jellicoe’s original plans, inked and pencilled on tracing paper. 

I am enthusiastic in joining the team with this Runnymede project on several counts - the idea of encouraging children to explore this site and become curious about a 20c designed landscape is brilliant and we could do so much more of this. But the hard information about the process of designing the Kennedy Memorial at Runnymede was, I thought, fairly limited. I knew the LI archive had a number of Susan Jellicoe’s photos but there was none of the original drawings. I was even more keen to help with the research on this project because curiously, when I was working on the LI's archive, this was the one aspect that generated most queries.

Because the focus of the Kennedy Memorial project was on the life and death of President John F Kennedy, it was dealt with at the highest level in Government: Prime Ministers past, present and future (Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Wilson), Cabinet Office, Foreign Office, Treasury, Department of Education and Science, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Crown Estate Commissioners, The Lord Mayor of London, the Governor of the Bank of England, Dame Margot Fonteyn, UK and US Ambassadors past and present, Her Majesty the Queen, Vic Feather, a good number of Lords, and a great number of civil servants all played a part in making this happen, with the whole thing moving almost at a sprint at times to get everything completed for the inauguration ceremony on May 14^th 1965.

I am pleased to say that a lot of Jellicoe is being discovered peeping through all this, of which more anon...

A Call to Action!

Good news – the flyer to local primary schools, inviting children and teachers to take part in out Runnymede activity days, has prompted an enthusiastic response.  Surprisingly, the response from local community groups has been slower.  If you know of a local group who would be interested in an environmental and heritage activity day at Runnymede, let us know or pass this message on.  This will be a really good day out for sure, but it is also about introducing people to the wonders of being outdoors AND helping us develop activity packs for others to use over the coming years.  Don't miss out - contact Louise Louise Miller - email education@gatton-park.org.uk or telephone 01737 649066. 

Landscape Design Trust - we're on the way!!

What a journey! 

Nearly two years ago I wrote 'UK children are losing connection with the outdoors'

That was when Landscape Design Trust first decided to fund raise for a project to keep communities in touch with their environment.

Now of course, there is plenty of proof that well being is closely linked to having good quality open space within easy reach. That doesn't mean that there is enough green space out there, though, or that people feel comfortable about using it. Or, particularly with the demise of the charity GreenSpace, enough of us doing anything about it.

This summer, we (LDT) hope to be making a contribution to the comfort zone bit. We will be exploring the wide green expanses of Runnymede with school children, local community groups and families, many of whom may find 'out doors' a bit foreign. 

We aim to learn from their reactions and use their experience to create rucksacks. Yep, rucksacks are going to be the great new open space interpretation tool – stuffed full of games and projects and old documents and .... well, we won't really know what will be in those rucksacks until we are nearing the end of the project!

And, finally, when we do get to the end of the project, those backpacks will be available to other families to borrow, so that others can also find out that 'outdoors' isn't another country at all, but an extension of their back yard, full of exciting things to do.

It looks like being an exciting journey for all of us. We are funded by Heritage Lottery Fund's (HLF) 'All our Stories' programme and that means leaving a digital record of our project. So it's not just Runnymede's kids who are getting a new experience. I'm learning to blog. Wish me luck! Wish us all luck!

JFK Memorial Steps at Runnymede

www.landscape.co.uk