Sword Rests in the City of London.

The historic churches of the City of London contain many unusual and interesting furnishings and fittings. Among the most intriguing are the sword rests. You don’t really find Sword Rests in the rest of the country, perhaps because bringing a sword into a church may seem rather incongruous but in the City, the Lord Mayor would either always wear a Sword or be accompanied by a sword bearer.

It’s rather hard to kneel and pray before an altar if one is carrying a long and bulky sword. 

Because of that, sword rests or stands were originally installed in City churches to hold the Lord Mayor’s sword of state when he visited a different church every Sunday.

The Lord mayor would be accompanied by various officers of the City, including the swordbearer, who would place the ceremonial sword upright in a sword rest, most commonly attached to the front pews. 

This practice ended in 1883 and in the intervening 150 odd years many of the sword rests have been relocated to less high-profile pews.

The oldest surviving rest dates from 1664 and can be found in St Helens Bishopsgate and rather uniquely these days, made of wood. 

There are 58 surviving sword rests originating from City churches or livery halls. Two thirds of these can be seen in City churches, four are in livery halls, while the remainder are either in storage in churches or in museums. The majority were installed in the 18th and 19th centuries and as such made from wrought iron.

All the sword rests, with the exception of that in St Michael Cornhill, are surmounted by a royal crown and almost all have the City’s coat of arms prominently displayed. Many also show the royal arms, the coat of arms of at least one Lord Mayor and, in a number of cases, the arms of the livery company of which the Lord Mayor was a member. Most are between five and six feet in height.

You can see on the photo above that the tip of the sword would fit up in that hole whilst the preceding photo shows where the handle of the sword would rest.

This particular sword rest is to be found in All Hallows by the Tower which features on a number of my tours with Ye Olde England Tours. Taxi drivers sometimes joke that it is home to the shortest coffins in London given its close proximity to Tower Hill where so many people were beheaded.