Horse Shoe Levy For Old Forge Paid by London

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 34, 10 February 1939, Page 5

Horse Shoe Levy For Old Forge Paid by London

LONDON —In payment for a forge that is gone from a ]ong-forgottcn site in the Strand here, six horseshoes and GJ nails are handed over each year by the City of London to the King’s Remembrancer. To save the Remembrancer from acquiring a great deal of old iron (and, if it comes to that, to save the City the expense and trouble of having this equine hosiery specially manufactured) the same shoes and nails are used each year. Though it is rather hard to imagine now, the busy Strand used to be a tilting ground for the Knights Templars from whom the adjacent Temple is named. Some 700 years ago, a farrier in the City, perceiving a business opportunity, sought and obtained permission to erect a forge somewhere near the bottom of what is now Chancery Lane. In return, the City had to pay to the King’s Exchequer at Westminster 61 nails and six horseshoes, the latter a specially heavy variety, designed sc that the knights’ charges could strike the odd blow' with their forelegs, now and again, in the course of a fracas. This payment has been kept up ever since, and since 1845, it has taken place at the J.aw Courts in a ceremony of quaint survival, typical of many. The Knights Templars, who wore mantles with a red Maltese cross on the left shoulder, were a religious order of knights, formed in 1118 A. D. to protect pilgrims to Jerusalem. Their headquarters were at that city until it fell into the hands of the Saracens in A. D. 1186, when they removed to Cyprus. A number of them settled in London and their church here still stands.