THE Gild of Freemen of York have walked in procession through the city centre to an annual church service, with the York Guard and York Waits leading the way.

Tom Gibson, Clerk to the Gild, said about 100 members, along with representatives of other York guilds and those from other cities across the country, such as Coventry, Leicester, Northampton and Lincoln, took part in the procession on Sunday morning.

He said they assembled at Bedern Hall behind Goodramgate and processed through the streets to a service at All Saints’ Church in Pavement, and then returned to the hall afterwards.

The procession was led for the first time by the York Guard and York Waits, creating an even more colourful spectacle than usual.

Crowds of shoppers and tourists watched the procession go by and, in Parliament Street, a group of Vikings from the reopened Jorvik Viking Centre created an impromptu guard of honour.

“The weather for the procession on Sunday morning was glorious,” said Mr Gibson.

The service and procession was preceded on Saturday evening by an annual banquet at The Principal Hotel near York Railway Station, formerly the Royal York Hotel.

Mr Gibson said freemen controlled York until 1835, when the Municipal reform Act was passed.

The main objectives of the York Gild, inaugurated in 1953, were to do everything possible to enhance the city’s good reputation, to encourage and assist citizens and freemen to realise their public and civic responsibilities and to serve their city in every way open to them.

In York, a man once had to be a freeman before he could trade or become a master craftsman and join one of the many guilds.

The York Waits have revived the band as it was in its heyday in the 16th century, playing a wide repertoire of period European music as well as their own arrangements of popular dance and ballad tunes.

The York Guard in its present form dates from 1987, when it was formed at the request of the then York City Council as a ‘guard of honour’ for the Duke and Duchess of York at the time of their first official visit to the city, wearing 1520s red coats and quartered caps.