This 1906 Ford hearse was one of many vintage and veteran commercial vehicles on display in Guildhall yard on Wednesday 18^th July for the City livery company’s most popular annual event – the Cart Marking Ceremony. Neil Sinclair tells us more.

This ritual, which dates back to the late 17^th century, involves all licensed vehicles being marked with the City of London’s arms on the shafts and numbered on a brass plate.

A member of the Worshipful Company of Carmen, which celebrated its 500^th anniversary last year, told Footprints of London that the Ford hearse had been built originally as a mobile crane to lift and move tombstones and other very heavy objects.

It was converted to a hearse in WWI amid a serious shortage of working horses due to thousands being commandeered for service on the western front in Flanders and France.

This had left many of the horse-drawn hearses in England without motive power.

The 112-year-old vehicle was parked, perhaps appropriately, over the remains of a Roman amphitheatre where hundreds of slaves and criminals were slaughtered as part of ritual entertainment for the population of Londinium from the late 1^st century AD to around the mid 4^th century.

In Roman days, the amphitheatre’s arena would have had a gravel and mortar base covered with a layer of soft sand to soak up the spilt blood. And in preparation for the Cart Marking Ceremony, sand is spread over the Guildhall yard – not to absorb blood but to catch any drips of oil from elderly engine sumps and gearboxes.