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Langham Pond

Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Surrey
LanghamPondRunnymede
LanghamPondRunnymede

Langham Pond is a 26.7-hectare (66-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Egham in Surrey.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.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Langham Pond (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Langham Pond
Cooper's Hill Lane, Borough of Runnymede

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.438 ° E -0.56 °
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Cooper's Hill Lane

Cooper's Hill Lane
TW20 0LG Borough of Runnymede
England, United Kingdom
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Ankerwycke Yew
Ankerwycke Yew

The Ankerwycke Yew is an ancient yew tree close to the ruins of St Mary's Priory, the site of a Benedictine nunnery built in the 12th century, near Wraysbury in Berkshire, England. It is a male tree with a girth of 8 metres (26 ft) at 0.3 metres. The tree is at least 1,400 years old, and could be as old as 2,500 years.On the opposite bank of the River Thames are the meadows of Runnymede and this tree is said to have been witness to the signing of Magna Carta. The tree is also said to be the location where Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn in the 1530s. Here the confederate Barons met King John, and having forced him to yield to the demands of his subjects they, under the pretext of securing the person of the King from the fury of the multitude, conveyed him to a small island belonging to the nuns of Ankerwyke [the island], where he signed the Magna Carta. There is some justification for the theory that the Ankerwycke Yew could be "the last surviving witness to the sealing of the Magna Carta 800 years ago". "In the 13th century, the landscape would have been different as the area was probably rather marshy as it was within the flood plain of the Thames. The Ankerwycke Yew is on a slightly raised area of land (therefore dry) and with the proximity of the Priory perhaps both lend some credibility to this claim."The Ankerwycke Yew is situated on lands managed by the National Trust. In 2002 it was designated one of fifty Great British Trees by The Tree Council.

The Jurors
The Jurors

The Jurors is an artwork by Hew Locke, installed at Runnymede in Surrey in 2015 to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta. Commissioned in 2014 by Surrey County Council and the National Trust, it comprises 12 high-backed bronze chairs placed in a grassy meadow, arranged in a rectangular formation to face inwards as if around a table, with one chair at each end and five along each side. Each chair measures 123 cm × 61 cm × 57 cm (48 in × 24 in × 22 in), and the installation covers an area of 4 m × 19 m (13 ft × 62 ft). The surfaces of each chair are decorated with images and symbols representing freedom, the rule of law, and human rights, clockwise from one end: The decorations cast into the chairs also include garlands of flowers, as a reference to the Victorian language of flowers, including coltsfoot, black-eyed Susan and horse chestnut for aspects of justice, and hops for injustice; images of ermine as a reference to the traditional robes of English judges; and keys to prison cells, including a key to the Bastille which was given to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette in 1790. Locke deliberately avoided representing a "collection of heroes", and intended his 24 selected scenes to provoke reflection and debate. Locke considers that the artwork is only completed when each chair is occupied by people discussing the issues depicted. It was dedicated on 15 June 2015, at a ceremony attended by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. The ceremony included a dramatised performance of the poem "Or In Any Other Way" by Owen Sheers, in which twelve actors emerged from the crowds to recite a stanza each, and then took a place on one of the chairs.