My stately day out in the Lord Mayor’s golden coach
Judith Woods tours the City in stately style ahead of the 800th Lord Mayor’s Show this weekend
Passers-by are pausing to stare. Builders are doing a double-take. Children are waving as their parents reach for their cameraphones. An ornately gilded, 258-year-old carriage is slowly, incongruously rolling through the Square Mile, early in the morning, like Cinderella’s coach after pulling an all-nighter.
Inside, there is an enigmatic lady (make that Lady) turning her swan-like neck to greet her public, while executing the wrist-twist wave that is the sole preserve of royals.
That Lady would be me. Wearing jeans and cowboy boots, I am not exactly dressed for the part, but for all its pomp and circumstance, this is not a royal coach. It is a carriage for – whisper it – a commoner. A socially elevated commoner, but a commoner all the same; namely, the Lord Mayor of the City of London.
On Saturday, the Lord Mayor’s State Coach will hold centre stage at the 800th Lord Mayor’s Show, when it makes the journey from Mansion House to the Royal Courts of Justice in an annual procession dating from 1215.
In the early 13th century, King John granted a charter allowing the citizens of London to elect their own mayor, with the stipulation that every new incumbent would pledge allegiance to the Crown. Tomorrow, Jeffrey Mountevans, a Swedish-born shipbroker based in London, will become the 688th Lord Mayor.
Today, the role is non-political and largely involves promoting London’s financial services industry at home and abroad, but the cavalcade remains. Although the festivities are about celebration rather than fealty, it would be wrong to dismiss the occasion as nothing more than frivolous folderol.
As the preface to the Ceremonial Handbook of the Corporation of London puts it: “Ceremonies are not put on merely for entertainment. They ensure that things are done with dignity and in good order.”
The spectacular procession that has evolved around the event is unique: more than 7,000 participants, 20 bands, 150 horses, hundreds of other carriages, carts, vintage cars, penny farthings and wheeled bathtubs draw around half a million people on to the streets on the second Saturday in November every year. “The carriage has been in continuous use for 250 years, which is what makes it so unique and valuable,” says Dominic Reid, pageant-master of the Royal Mayor’s Show for the past 24 years. “Every time I touch the door handle I am struck afresh by the coach’s history, its longevity and its symbolism. Becoming Lord Mayor was the highest rank to which any commoner could aspire; it was the pinnacle of success and this vehicle expressed that.”
By way of acknowledgement, the household cavalry will ride in their gold state coats and play musical instruments on horseback; there will also be a flotilla of barges on the Thames and fireworks in the evening.
The first mayor, Henry Fitz Alwyn, took the post in 1189 and held it for 24 years; Dick Whittington was Lord Major three times; while there have only ever been two female Lord Mayors of London, in 1983 and 2013. Originally, Lord Mayors would ride a horse but after one was unseated by a drunken serving wench and broke his leg, a coach was commissioned in 1757, at a cost of £860.
“At that time having one’s own carriage was a status symbol,” says Reid.
“The coach itself is refurbished on an ongoing basis,” he adds. “There are over 80 layers of paint and varnish on the top of the coach roof.”
The painted panels are by the Florentine painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani, who lived in London, and the carriage is pulled by six horses. Housed at the Museum of London, where it can be viewed for most of the year, the coach is currently on display at Guildhall, prior to the parade.
On the day itself, Reid will, as befits the pageant master, be dressed in full fig.
“I travel in front of the Lord Mayor in an open-topped Land Rover wearing my plumed cocked hat,” he says. His ride is probably smoother than the carriage, given the coach has no suspension and iron-rimmed wooden wheels; but in truth he has no way of knowing.
“I’ve sat in it, but never ridden anywhere,” he admits. “You are very fortunate to have that opportunity.”
Quite so. Various mayors down the ages have reported bouts of seasickness after negotiating London’s streets. I am rather proud to report I was unaffected. But maybe that means some of us commoners are more to the manner born than others.
‘It would be wrong to dismiss the occasion as nothing more than frivolous folderol’