QUEER RENTALS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 22 January 1927, Page 11

QUEER RENTALS

SURVIVALS OF FEUDAL DAYS

TFiNG GEORGE is the recipient of many queer rents, which, if of no intrinsic value, are certainly- curious. They are really surviving customs of feudal days.

The Royal Academy pays a peppercorn rent for the site of Burlington House.

The owner of Copeland Manor holds his tenancy on condition that he supports the King’s head should the Sovereign be seasick in crossing from Dover to Whitsand.

The Manor of Aylesbury is bound to provide the King with three geese if he goes there in summer, or with three eels if it is in the winter. It is- also bound to provide clean straw for the Fling’s bedroom three times a year should his Majesty pass through Aylesbury. This obligation dates from the time when straw was a luxury for the bedroom floor.

St. Olave’s Grammar School, near 'lower Bridge, is rented by roses. Originally the value of the land was £3O. Its worth is now £SOOO k year, but the rent is still a bunch of roses. The ancient city of Chichester is bound to provide the King with “a string for his cross-bow, ’ ’ while the lord of Bryanston. in Dorset, used to hold his manor on condition that he provided a boy with a stringless bow and an unfeathered arrow whenever tne King made war in Wales.

“Tenants and occupiers of a certain tenement called ‘The Forge,’ in the parish of Rt. Clement Danes in the County of Middlesex, come forth and do your service!” 'Ro eries the King’s Remembrancer.

In reply., the City of London solicitor solemnly proceeds to hand over the “rent’’ —six immense horseshoes and 61 nails—as has been done every year since 1235. This is in respect of a blacksmith’s forge which Henry Til. allowed to be set up in Fitchett’s Fields, where the knights held their jousts.