Four hundred years ago, in 1619, King James 1 granted the Mayor of Maidstone the privilege of keeping the town's swans and cygnets.

It was an extension of a Royal Charter already granted 60 years earlier by Queen Elizabeth1 giving the Mayor the right to inspect the town's waterways.

On Saturday, newly installed Mayor of Maidstone, Cllr Marion Ring, and her escort, husband Richard, exercised that right by conducting her annual Court of Survey.

The Mayor, accompanied by a flotilla of vessels carrying her invited guests, toured the River Medway between the borough's boundaries - downstream to Hawkwood Stone and upstream to Wateringbury.

Maidstone is the only borough in the country where the swans belong to the Mayor rather than to the monarch and Cllr Ring took her Swanmaster Mark Brattle from Leeds Castle with her.

Mr Brattle was able to ring five swans for her.

The boats for the occasion were provided by members of the Hampstead and Yalding Cruising Club, as they have done since 1981. The club also provided a buffet for the Mayor and her guests at the Medway Wharf Marina in Wateringbury in at the end of the day.

The Mayor travelled aboard the Lorena Joy, accompanied by Bob Tuthill, the cruise organiser.

The Mayor of Tonbridge and Malling, Cllr Jill Anderson, followed aboard the cruiser Solstice.

Other guests included Cllrs Martin Cox, Fay Gooch, Chris Garland, Anabelle Blackwood, and Eddie Powell, and former Mayor, Dave Naghi. They were accompanied by a detachment of Sea Cadets from TS Scott and the Ashford Folk Band.