The Swan Room

This room, like the Gassiot Room, is part of the 1990s redevelopment and acknowledges the Company’s association with swans. It is designed to have an ‘outdoor’ feel and is often used for wine tastings. The Company’s right to own swans on the Thames is by prescription, ie before legal memory. It predates the Company’s first surviving records. The first mention of swans in the Vintners’ archives is a payment for looking after them during the “Great Frost” of 1509. The care of the swans is entrusted traditionally to the Junior Warden, or ‘Swan Warden’. The Swan Warden’s banner hangs at the western end of the room. The swans are counted and the cygnets ringed on an annual Swan Upping Voyage in July.