Magna Carta was signed here at Runnymede more than 800 years ago. Many more struggles were required before the democracies we enjoy today came to be, but arguably what happened here in 1215 was a particularly important step on the way. This cache was set on 4 July 2024 - Britain is at the polls, and in America it is Independence Day. Democracy is always fragile, and the freedoms we have, so hard won, are always under threat.
This art work, 'The Jurors' by Hew Locke, is a celebration of those freedoms and a memorial to the hard road to achieving them. The twelve seats and the name represent the right to trial by a jury of ordinary people, rather than at the whim of a monarch or other overwhelming power. This is one of the freedoms we can trace back to Magna Carta.
Please look at the 24 panels on the seat backs, which are the artist's pick of some of the obstacles on the road to freedom and equality, and of some of the heros that helped to overcome them. What first brought me here was one of the less well-known heroes - Lilian Lenton, a young working-class woman from Leicester, who in the early years of the Twentieth Century fought so hard (she nearly died) for the right of women to vote. For more information about Lilian see my geocache Lilian Lenton GC84E08, where you can see the photograph the artist used to create his image of Lilian.
Some of the other people rightly celebrated on the seats are much better known (Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Oscar Wilde, Harvey Milk, Aung San Suu Kyi) but as well as Lilian there are other less well-remembered names (Phillis Wheatley, Mary Prince, Cornelia Sorabji). It is interesting to note that the well-known group are almost all men, the others all women.
There is also a commemoration of the awful story of the slave-ship Zong, and more happily a celebration of the 'golden rule', found in every culture, that simply says 'treat others as you would wish to be treated'.
There are other geocaches nearby. And while you are here visit the Magna Carta Memorial, erected and maintained by the American Bar Association in honour of the great charter and the fact that the English Common Law of which it is part is also the foundation of the American legal system.
You might want to look into the stories of Lilan, Phillis, Mary, Cornelia, the Zong and indeed the Magna Carta if you don't know them, though this is of course not required to successfully find the cache. To claim the cache please post a photograph showing 'The Jurors' and something of yourself; your GPSr, a thumbs up, a piece of paper with your geocaching name, or your right ear will do if you don't want to show your face. But you must have been here; posts without such evidence will be deleted.
Virtual Rewards 4.0 - 2024-2025
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between January 17, 2024 and January 17, 2025. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 4.0 on the Geocaching Blog.