QUEER RENT CEREMONY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18885, 6 December 1924, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUEER RENT CEREMONY.

HATCHET AND BILL-HOOK.

AN OLD TIME FORGE.

QUAINT ROYAL GRANT.

The ceremony of Quit Rents, duo to the Crown by the Corporation of tho City '"'London, recently took pla at the Royal Courts of Justice, before Sir T. Wil'bs Chitty, the King's Remembrancer. It is believed to bo tho most ancient rent service now rendered in Britain.

These services were formerly rendered before 'he Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer', and at the same time the solemnity of presenting the new sheriffs of London at the Exchequer Bar by the Recorder, or other counsel of the City, for the approval of their election by the Sovereign, was observed. The property in respect of which tho first service is rendered is a piece of ground called "The Moors," in Salop, the rent of which is paid by the City Solicitor cutting two bundles of faggots with a bill-hook and hatchet, one of which is sharp and the other blunt. Equally curious is the second service, rendered' in respect of a tenement called " The Forge." The original grant of tho forge was made to Walter le Brun, a farrier in the Strand, who was to have a

piece of ground in the parish of St. Clement Danes to havo a forge there, he rendering six horseshoes for it. Tho shoes in the ceremony arc 700 years old. The record appears in the Groat Roll of the Exchequer of "19 Henry III.", This entry gives no clue to tho exact locality of the forge, but, although. the small. plot of land granted by Henry 111. cannot be identified with certainty, it is thought to have been in tho immediate neighbourhood of Mil ford Lane, Strand, when the district beyond the city's liberties was open fields. Tradition attaching to this quaint grant is that an itinerant farrier had established himself on the Knights Templars' tilting i ground so as to be in readiness to replace ! the cast shoes of horses or to repair ; damage to the knights' armour. His I deft and prompt services came to the I notice of the King, who rewarded him i with the grant. '