If you ever find yourself in the City of London in May, walking across Paternoster Square towards St Paul's Cathedral, don't be alarmed if you come across ranks of pikemen and musketeers, men and women in an array of robes, someone who looks suspiciously like Sir Christopher Wren... and a solitary figure clutching an oil can, don't be alarmed. All it means is that you're lucky enough to have stumbled across the City of London's newest 'ancient tradition': the Oiling of the Gates Ceremony at Temple Bar.
Completed in 1672, and built of Portland stone, Temple Bar is an English baroque archway, supposedly designed by the great architect of St Paul's, Sir Christopher Wren. It is the last surviving example of a City gate, eight of which used to mark key routes into and out of the City of London until most of them were demolished in the 18th century. The survivor on Paternoster Square used to stand where the City of London meets the City of Westminster, basically where Fleet Street becomes the Strand. Named after the nearby Temple area, where lawyers plied their trade, it regulated trade and traffic into the City and acted as a tax-collecting measure.
The first such structure goes back to 1293 and was probably little more than a chain stretched between two wooden posts, effectively acting as a 'bar' to traffic. It also became the spot where the monarch was presented with a pearl sword by the Lord Mayor if they ever visited the City. This ceremony, which stretches back to the reign of Elizabeth I, still happens, only the Temple Bar archway is no longer there to see it... if an inanimate object can actually see anything!
The heads of traitors on spikes were also affixed to the roof of Temple Bar in the 17th and 18th centuries, as a visible warning. There are reports that the last heads were still visible until March 1773, when a strong wind finally brought them down.
In 1878, due to the inevitable march of 'progress' (i.e. increasing traffic flows and the construction of The Royal Courts of Justice) Temple Bar was dismantled, brick by brick and eventually re-erected in Theobald's Park, Hertfordshire where it stayed for about a hundred years. The spot where Temple Bar used to stand is now marked by a ferocious looking dragon (some say a griffin) on a tall plinth providing an uneasy 'welcome' to visitors to the City.
Thanks to the efforts of the Temple Bar Trust the gateway was subsequently purchased, brought back from the sticks and re-erected in 2004 in its current location: between Paternoster Square and St Paul's Cathedral. The Trust still manage the structure and take an active role in promoting architecture in the City.
The Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects, who use Temple Bar as their livery hall (a very small one btw), and the City of London Corporation, signed a contract which stipulated that the hinges on the wooden gates should be oiled every year to keep them in working order. So it came to pass that in 2025 the ceremony of Oiling the Gates at Temple Bar came into being, with all the pomp and circumstance of the State Opening of Parliament. Like that world famous event, Temple Bar's version sees their own cousin of Parliament's Black Rod (actually Grant Smith, the Education and Outreach Officer for Temple Bar) hammering three times on the gates to beg admittance.
Michael Coombs, who carries the honorary title of Master of the Gates, is then let loose to administer said oil to the hinges, which then swing that bit more freely for another year.
It's all good fun and adds to the rich tapestry of City of London life. If you are new to the City you would be forgiven for thinking this is something that has occured for years and has its origins embedded in the time of Wren. However, this is only its second year which only goes to show that in the City of London, you don't have to be old to become a tradition.