Runnymede's memorials and landscapes: Magna Carta and England's wider communities of belonging

This article explores the memorials at Runnymede, Surrey, to analyse the multiple expressions of Englishness, and the diverse ways in which England's political imaginary extends far beyond the borders of England itself. Whereas much comment on Englishness since the Brexit referendum of 2016 has characterised it as an inward-looking, parochial and even inherently racist, our analysis shows how it has been constructed as highly connected with other parts of the world, notably through how Magna Carta has been incorporated into national and supra-national narratives beyond England. Our analysis discloses how Runnymede's memorials, forms that exemplify the increasingly diverse forms of material commemoration that are proliferating and decentring traditional designs, express shifting, competing meanings of England and divergent links to other people and places: the Empire and Commonwealth, the so-called English-speaking peoples and the Anglosphere, and multicultural Britain's connections with the wider world. Besides these symbolic encodings, through autoethnographic and cultural analysis, we investigate the affective and sensory impact of each memorial in an already symbolically and affectively charged landscape.