VANDALS OF RUNNYMEDE

Evening Star, Issue 21232, 13 October 1932, Page 11

VANDALS OF RUNNYMEDE

The Prince of Wales, in “ boater ”* and grey striped flannels, dealt very tactfully with an awkward situation when he unveiled the commemoration pillars at llunnymede, says the ‘ Manchester Guardian.’ The Prince and his party, which included Lord Zetland,the chairman of the National Trust, and Lady Fairhaven and her two sons, who presented llunnymede to the nation, had been informed before setting out of an outrage committed there—creosote having been sprayed on the memorial during the night—so that the sight of Sir Edwin Lutyen’s simple urntopped pillars and the two high-chini-neyed porter lodges on cither side of the road almost completely defaced did not come upon them as a sudden shock. Lady Fairhaven had had the pillars and cottages erected as a memorial to her husband, Urban Broughton, one time Conservative M.P. for Preston. Both the Prince and Lord Zetland, who made brief speeches, refrained from making any reference to an act of vandalism on what Lord Zetland described as “ the most famous meadows in the history of our country.” Otherwise it was a perfect English' summer’s day for such a ceremony. The sun in a cloudless sky “ played the * alchemist.” There was scarcely a , breeze to silver the leaves on the osier isle across the river. Now and then a pleasure boat slipped up the river to Windsor, making as little noise almost as the swans in their wake. Only a small crowd of residents from Egham and Staines gathered on the roadside to give the Prince a cheer, waving handkerchiefs against the background of “ Cooper’s Hill.” There hag been a considerable amount of local feeling against the erection of , the pillars and cottages at the entrance to llunnymede. The National Trust, by an oversight, started building before submitting the plans to the local council for approval. When this way pointed out to them, however, they made the only amends possible in the circumstances —by apologising. _ But local feeling continued to run high, and before the cottages were completed they had ■ already been nicknamed locally “ the tea-caddies on stilts.” At the meeting of the Egham Council such phrases as “ the high-handed way in which the National Trust has swept down on the district,” were bandied about. However, no explanation as to the perpetrator of the outrage has been forthcoming, and local residents were expressing on all sides their disgust at what is an insult not merely to Lady Fairhaven and the National Trust but to the Prince.' After the unveiling the Prince asked Lady Fairhaven where the actual signing of the Magna Charta took place. She indicated with a wave of her hand the meadows running down to tho river’s edge. But some antiquaries maintain that at the .time of the signing of the Magna Charta these meadows now known simply as “ Runnymede,” were under water, and that since then the actual spot on which the signing took place has become submerged also.