Beating The BoundsMay Day Bank Holiday, 2 May 2011We are on Facebook and Twitter, Follow us and get all the news as it happens  |
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 Beating the Bounds is a
circular walk of approximately 8 miles around the boundary of the old Parish of
Hanwell. The walk remembers the old tradition of checking the boundaries of the parish. The priest of the parish, churchwardens and officials headed a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, usually willow or birch, beat the parish boundary markers. Sometimes the boys were themselves bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember the stones! The object of taking boys was to ensure that witnesses to the boundaries should survive as long as possible. The ceremony had an important practical purpose. Checking the boundaries was a way of preventing encroachment by neighbours; sometimes boundary markers would be moved, or lines obscured, and a folk memory of the true extent of the parish was necessary to maintain integrity of borders by embedding knowledge by oral traditions. Beating the Bounds often took place in the spring, being associated with the church calendar, though the tradition goes back to the days of the Anglo Saxons. The walk starts and finishes at The Fox, Green Lane on May Day Bank Holiday, 2 May 2011 from 12:00 noon. We very much hope you can join us and help raise funds for Hanwell Carnival and Show. Please download a sponsorship form HERE. For more information and to register your intention to participate in the walk, contact Elaine Hill beatingthebounds@hanwellcarnival.co.uk You will also be able to donate directly shortly, come back soon. |
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