The 2016 Lord Mayor’s Show and the 801st anniversary of the Lord Mayor’s journey will be on Saturday 12th November 2016. The ancient carnival is loved the world over and regarded as a classic piece of British pageantry in the UK calendar.
When the Lord Mayor’s journey began, London and Westminster were two small towns separated by open countryside. The quickest and safest way to get from one to the other was to travel up the Thames, and for the first few hundred years the Lord Mayor’s Show did just that.
If you’ve ever wondered why a carnival is made up of floats, that’s why. Crowds would watch from the banks of the Thames and a host of little Thames boats would tag along, causing the proper London traffic jam that you see in Canaletto’s paintings.
THE FLOTILLA
After several centuries, the Lord Mayor’s flotilla is back in the water. The new Lord Mayor will travel in QRB Gloriana, the traditional Thames barge made famous in the Jubilee celebrations, with an accompanying procession of 24 traditional Thames boats from London’s livery companies and port authorities.
The Lord Mayor will board Gloriana in Vauxhall at 08:30 then the flotilla will make its way downstream, passing under Vauxhall, Lambeth, Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, London and Tower bridges before finally disembarking at HMS President, just below St Katherine’s dock. The journey will take about an hour, and the Lord Mayor will reach Mansion House ready to join the procession to the Royal Courts.
The Lord Mayor’s Show is a procession of more than 7,000 people, 200 horses and 140 floats. It’s three miles long and can never be fully assembled because the route from Mansion House to the Royal Course covers less than two miles.
The procession will set off from Mansion House at 11:05am. It is led away by the Band of the Coldstream Guards and at a steady marching pace they will take 27 minutes to get to the Royal Courts. The procession that follows is over an hour long, so the City’s sanitation department (who always bring up the rear) will reach the courts at around 12.30. The return leg leaves Temple Place at 1.10pm and the tail of the procession arrives back at Mansion House at 2.30. A detailed timetable will be available here with times accurate to the second.
5:15pm on November 12th: To mark the end of the Lord Mayor’s Show and the beginning of a new mayoral year, London’s newly confirmed Lord Mayor will launch a splendid fireworks display over the river.
It’s one of London’s most spectacular annual displays and you’ll be able to see the fireworks for miles, but for the best view head down to the riverside between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges, either on Victoria Embankment or on the South Bank. All the roads and both side of Waterloo bridge will be closed to traffic so there’s plenty of room. Blackfriars Bridge is also closed on the northbound side, so there will be room for everyone.
You can expect the display to last 15-20 minutes and the roads to reopen at around 6.30.
