The JFK memorial at Runnymede is fit to stand forever The low, wooded eminence of Cooper's Hill, itself immortalised as an emblem of liberty in John Denham's 1642 poem, rises up to the south, and it is to the woodland edge that the path leads. Passing through a wicket gate, the visitor joins a pathway of granite setts, edged with cobbles, which winds uphill and into the woods. This path, which consists of some 60,000 setts laid directly into the earth, is perhaps the single most noteworthy "feature" of the design, lending the whole conception a feeling of unity and coherence, enhancing the sense that one has been absorbed into both the place and the journey through it. For Jellicoe, the setts represented people: the multitude of pilgrims who would find their way here. The winding path is also reminiscent of the one that leads through woodland up to the great Zen gravel garden of Ryoan-ji, in Kyoto. It is no coincidence that Jellicoe was commissioned to create the memorial just days before he embarked on his first visit to Japan, during which time he sketched out his initial ideas. The climb up the hill is quite arduous - the effort exerted very much part of Jellicoe's plan - through a woodland that represents life. As the visitor nears the top, the trees thin while the path straightens into a series of smooth flagstoned steps leading to the great memorial: seven tons of Portland stone. The memorial itself, made from seven tonnes of Portland stone The smoothness of the steps and the memorial stone itself is in stark contrast to the rugged pathway that prefaces it. The inscription on the stone, carved in monumental capitals, is a quote from Kennedy's inaugural presidential address of January 1961: "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty." Jellicoe insisted that the lettering take up all the available space on the stone, "so that it is not so much an inscription upon it as an expression of the stone itself; it is as if it were the stone speaking." The stone is shaded by that ancient English tree, a hawthorn, with an American scarlet oak planted nearby. Jellicoe wanted it to seem as if these trees were "in conversation"; he often spoke of trees in the landscape as having a human-like presence. That is not quite the end of the memorial landscape. Jellicoe did not want visitors simply to turn around and go back again, so he created another path at a right angle, running west along the contours of the hill. This leads to two pairs of steps up to monumental plinth-like benches, with views across the meadows and river. Many visitors do indeed spend a long time at this spot, which feels like part of an enclosed feature with a defined purpose, rather than just another resting place. The walk back down provides a satisfying sense of conclusion to the experience The Kennedy Memorial is now in the care of the National Trust, which has plans to create a new visitor centre in one of the twin brick pavilions designed by Edwin Lutyens which flank the road. But the acre of ground itself was originally the gift of the Queen, who formally opened the memorial in the presence of the president's widow and children in May 1965. There is a photograph showing the Duke of Edinburgh rather touchingly holding hands with the four-year-old John Kennedy, Jnr, as they stand in a line in front of the memorial. Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe in his study in 1990 The Queen's speech that day referred to the shock that left her people "almost in despair" at the news of the president's death. The project was commissioned on the cusp of Jellicoe's epiphanic "conversion" to Jungian psychology, which caused his later work to become didactic and over-complicated. The Kennedy Memorial can be considered Jellicoe's masterpiece, and it stands as one of the most moving, yet most unsung, landscape designs in Britain. See kennedytrust.org.uk and nationaltrust.org.uk