https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FqXlPn3Yo0
“2014 Lord Mayor’s Show Today at 11!” | November 8, 2014 | City of London, UK
It’s the Lord Mayor’s Show today!!!
Lord Mayors Show 2014 | City of London, United Kingdom.
▇ Lord Mayor’s Procession: 11:00am.
Lord Mayor’s procession sets off from Mansion House at 11am.
▇ The fireworks begin at 5:15pm from the river between Waterloo and Blackfriars bridges.
The 2014 Show is on Saturday November 8th. It starts early with the river pageant then the magnificent Lord Mayor’s procession sets off from Mansion House at 11am. The day finishes with a bang in a fireworks display on the river at 5.15.
*** [VIDEO*: Pre 2014 #LordMayorsShow video footage]
Highlights:
▇ This year the City of London Corporation’s 1297 copy of Magna Carta will feature in the Show, kick-starting global celebrations of the ancient charter’s 800th anniversary in 2015
▇ Magna Carta is widely regarded as a cornerstone of English law and human rights. For the first time, the charter required a monarch – King John – to accept that his will was not arbitrary and that people could only be ruled through the law of the land
▇ 7,000 people from all over the world in the procession, including 180 horses, 140 vehicles, 70 floats, a vintage steamroller, a Spitfire, a Viking ship, Masai dancers, Taiko drummers, Shaolin kung-fu dancers, a grand piano pulled by bicycles, Napoleon and a tank
▇ New City of London Lord Mayor Alan Yarrow travelling in the golden State Coach
***
It begins with the ancient and justified caution of King John. He tried to win London’s support by allowing it to choose its own Mayor, but he insisted that immediately after election the Mayor must leave the safety of the City of London, travel upriver to distant Westminster and swear loyalty to the Crown.
Over the centuries this inconvenient journey became one of London’s favourite rituals. It moved from river barges to horseback and then into the magnificent State Coach, and around it grew a rowdy and joyful medieval festival that became known as the Lord Mayor’s Show.
***
The ancient pageant is now bigger than ever. It is a London institution and hasn’t missed a year since Wellington’s funeral blocked the whole city in 1852. The modern procession is over three and a half miles long and fills the whole space between Bank and Aldwych from 11am until about 2.30pm, cheered by a crowd of around half a million people and watched live on the BBC by millions more.
***
▇ The River Pageant sets off at 8.30am near Westminster Bridge and travels downriver to pass through Tower Bridge at 9.25.
▇ The Lord Mayor’s Show sets off at 11am from Mansion House and somehow manages to fit three miles of floats into a 1.7 mile route. It will take an hour and a quarter to go by.
***