Homeward Bounds
THE BOYS GATHER at the boulder and start hitting it with sticks. Just for fun? Not quite. They are beating the bounds – walking the perimeter of their home parish and walloping each boundary marker to impress its location in their memories. Before maps, knowledge of a parish’s geography was handed down from man to boy in this way, as the priest and church-wardens rounded up the local lads on Ascension Day (40 days after Easter) and marched them round the edge.
It was also a chance to bless the land and prayers were often said at particular trees, known as gospel oaks. Despite the feasting that frequently followed, it could be a tough day out for the boys: every inch of the boundary had to be trodden, even if it ran along a riverbed, and they would sometimes be whipped, or lofted upside-down to have their heads banged into the stones to, it’s said, really help them remember.
The tradition continues in some parishes (minus the whipping) like Llantrisant in south Wales, where over 10,000 visitors join the walk around a boundary which now crosses a golf course, a hospital and the Royal Mint. It only happens every seven years which by our calculation makes 2024 the next date for your diary, but there may be bounds being beaten near you in 2021, or you can have fun piecing together your own route to trace the boundary of your home parish as closely as footpaths and open access land will let you. Civil parishes or communities are marked by grey dots on Ordnance Survey Explorer maps, or you can buy a map of your parish from themapcentre.com.