Choosing the mayor in Brightlingsea belfry

Brightlingsea chose its deputy mayor, answerable to the Cinque Ports, in the belfry of the parish church at the start of December, with the vicar acting as recorder. Each new freeman paid eleven pennies, and the regalia included a chain of gold oysters and silver sprats. Hazlitt quoted the Daily Telegraph of 2 December 1902, which also mentioned an old right to wreck the house of any freeman who refused the office.