11/24/2025
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In the early 13th century, the City of London struck a deal with the English Crown. For the use of two small plots—one a stretch of moorland in Shropshire called The Moors, the other a blacksmith’s forge near the Strand in London—the city would pay a yearly rent.
But the “rent” wasn’t coins. It was objects.
For The Moors, the city owed two knives—today represented by a blunt billhook and a sharp axe. For the forge in Tweezer’s Alley, the price was six oversized horseshoes and sixty-one nails.
Over time, the exact boundaries of both properties vanished from maps. Royal records still mention them, but nobody can point to the actual pieces of ground. The land is lost. The obligation is not.
Every autumn, inside the wood-paneled Royal Courts of Justice, the ancient Quit Rents Ceremony reassembles the old Court of Exchequer. A black-and-white chequered cloth is laid out—the origin of the word “Exchequer.” The King’s (or Queen’s) Remembrancer, the oldest continual judicial office in England, presides.
City officials present the billhook and axe. A hazel twig is placed over the blunt blade; it must mark the wood without cutting it. The sharp axe then splits the twig, recalling medieval tally sticks used as receipts. If both tests succeed, the Remembrancer pronounces: “Good service.”
Next come the six huge horseshoes and a small bag of nails. The official counts out sixty and then, after a bit of theatrical fumbling, produces the sixty-first.
The Remembrancer nods and says: “Good number.”
The same centuries-old horseshoes and nails are used each year, loaned back to the City after the ceremony.
The practical reason for the rent has disappeared. What remains is something stranger and more powerful: a living reminder that, in England, a promise made in 1211 is still being kept.
