[6][failed verification] The Aldermen also appoint a High Bailiff; since 1750 this had been the current Under Sheriff and Secondary of London, but since 2017 this is the senior administrator of the Old Bailey.
The area of the manor includes the south-side footing of London Bridge, Southwark Cathedral, Borough Market, Hays Galleria and The Shard.
The High Steward, being such an eminent jurist, then gives a talk (a 'charge' to the jury) on some historical matter or an issue of some current legal concern and controversy, and the court then adjourns to allow the jurors to continue in a convivial way, entertaining their guests and the Old Bailey officers to a festive meal.
[11] The original burh of Southwark (ſuðringa geƿeorce)[12] was founded by Alfred the Great ca 879-886 as part of a system of 33 forts to defend the kingdom of Wessex and English Mercia from the Vikings (see Burghal Hidage).
Apart from trade and administrative control the 'freemen' or burgesses (burh members) also dispensed local justice and this too grew from an early Anglo-Saxon procedure of the frið-borh.
This procedure is prefigured in King Alfred’s law codes by an arrangement called the gegilden and references to tenth century ‘frith gilds’.
This was a national record of account to list what was owed to the king by his tenants in chief, his fellow Norman conquerors and the senior Prelates of the Church, whom were the greatest landholders.
In Domesday Book the value of Southwark to the king was noted as £16.00, and there is some evidence that the render was for £10 in the early period but it eventually settled at £11; the differences may have been related to fee or tax farming.
The jurors attend and stand witness to their foreman and officers, presenting the rental by placing 44 crowns, i.e. five shilling (now 25 pence) pieces onto the Exchequer Cloth to represent the £11.
Although largely now decorative, the ceremony underlies the fact that the City Bridge House Estate & Lands committee is the largest land-owner in the area.