Brand awareness

The City of London's ancient cart-marking ceremony has become an unlikely low-key tourist attraction.

- JOHN EVANS

The congestion charge, LEZ and ULEZ charges. All schemes introduced by mayors of London in recent years, but another has been running in our capital city for much longer. Cart marking, the practice of branding carts for a fee, thereby allowing suppliers and traders to enter the City of London without paying a fine, began almost 750 years ago, in 1277. Although the requirement to mark goods vehicles in this way passed into history long ago, a cart-marking ceremony celebrating it is still performed once a year in Guildhall Yard. Meanwhile, it remains the case that to drive a vehicle through Guildhall Arch, a fee of five shillings (25p) must be paid to the City of London.

The organisation responsible for cart marking was and remains the Worshipful Company of Carmen, one of around 110 livery companies in the City of London representing ancient and modern trades. Not to be confused with Bizet's opera, Carmen is a contraction of 'cart men'. The WCC represented them, branding their carts for a fee of five shillings. The company is still active and today represents the transport and logistics sectors, lobbying on their behalf, educating young newcomers to the industry and performing charitable works.