Plaque

{Circular Plaque:}
Sir Roger Bannister while a medical student at St Mary's Hospital Medical School from 1951 - 54, trained on the cinder track on this site in preparation for the first under 4 minute mile run in Oxford on 6th May 1954.
City of Westminster
Unveiled on 10th September 2000.

{Rectangular Plaque:}
This plaque was unveiled by Sir Roger Bannister on "Good Neighbours Day", Sunday 10th September 2000.
On the current site of the village green between 1951 and 1954, Sir Roger Bannister, Sir Christopher Chataway and Chris Brasher C.B.E. trained prior to Sir Roger breaking the one mile running record on 6th May 1954.
One of the most challenging in sport, the four minute target had stood for so long that Bannister's great rival, the Australian John Landy said that he was beginning to think it was impossible.
The attempt by the 25 year old medical student from Oxford University was many weeks in the planning, and when the wind dropped just before the start of the race on the cinder track at the Oxford University athletics ground he sensed his moment had arrived. It was agreed that Bannister's running mates Chris Brasher and Christopher Chataway, would lead the first three laps and that Bannister would take over on the final lap. The plan worked perfectly. Bannister, who was only able to train for an hour each day because of his studies at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, ran the last lap in 59 seconds, crossing the line 3 minutes 59.4 seconds beating the previous best of 4 minutes 1.3 seconds set by Gunder Hägge in 1945.