BEATING THE BOUNDS.
Under the head of "Holy Thursday and its old customs at Worcester" the "Worcester Herald" of May 27, 1854, contained the following sketch, which is worthy of a place here:
The ancient custom of "processioning," or "beating the bounds," on Ascension Day, it seems, has not yet become a dead letter in this city. The parishes of All Saints and St. Clement are among the most determined upholders of antiquity in this respect; and although it is but seldom that either parish rejoices in these "free-and-easy" carnivals, there are, nevertheless, a few jovial spirits left in each, who occasionally become so overcharged with a desire for practical fun and adventure that "go it they must," and straightway the venerable custom of "beating the bounds" is as good an excuse as any other for indulging their appetite. The practice, we believe, has not been observed in the parish of All Saints for ten years past, till Thursday last, when it came off with all that eclat and superabundance of relish which had been accumulating during the interval of a decade of years. The steeple being, of course, the rallying point, the party met in the morning at the vestry-room, from whence sallied the Rev. Dr. Bartlett, the curate, Messrs. H. Davis and E. Clarke, churchwardens, Messrs. Hill and William Hole, overseers, and a party of about twenty parishioners, accompanied by a shoal of larkish striplings—a body which considerably augmented during the line of route—vires acquirit eundo. Down Quay Street they went and down the steps towards a boat, but not without misgivings did the party cast their eyes aloft to the rough-and-ready customers assembled on the bridge, under the centre arch of which the "processioners" were doomed to go. Two policemen had been impressed into the boat for purposes of defence, but what is a policeman more than any other mortal under the combined influences of a cataract of mud and water? And what avails a staff, sword, or dagger, when the enemy grins upon you from a perpendicular height of some twenty or thirty feet? Accordingly the party went through the ordeal with all the calm courage of victims whose only consolation is, that when custom sanctions, neither law nor personal comfort is accounted as of the slightest consequence. On the whole they escaped as well as could have been expected, having encountered only a little water, mud, and a few et ceteras. Thence they proceeded, and cast anchor in Dolday Bay, and after landing there, our informant assures us, "the game was tremendous." Six or seven shillings' worth of buns were scattered, about to produce some scrambling among the boys, and the consequences, as might be supposed, were a considerable exhibition of juvenile activity, amid which dirt and rubbish "around their heads were flying;" and one venerable dame, declaring she had nothing else to part with, discharged the contents of her teapot so effectually as to plaster up the eye of our informant, who insists upon it that he couldn't see why the old lady should have resorted to such extremities for putting him into hot water. Dolday and the Butts were passed, and the interior of eight or ten houses inspected, the wall of the Independent Chapel, Angel Street, scaled, and the Crown yard reached, when another drenching shower slightly damped the ardour of the borderers; but, like Cromwell's Invincibles, armed to the teeth with pluck, on they went, through Mr. Loxley's house and back premises, down Powick Lane, through Tanner's yard, and so back to the vestry, where progress was duly recorded in the books. We should not omit to state that the chaplain, who accompanied the party, had done his best to turn the old ceremony to good account, by delivering appropriate addresses, &c., at various points on the line of route. On again emerging from the vestry, a final salutation was given to the explorers by the assembled crowd, in which the policemen got thoroughly rinsed; a worthy Boniface, known as "The old fellow," was prostrated to the ground, in which position he shouted most piteously, "Blow me if I ain't blinded;" and an overseer was so roughly handled, that his usual amiable temper became ruffled, and he swore a deadly oath, that if they gave him three months for it, he would punch the head of the first fellow he caught. The boys were treated to a scrambling for pence, and so ended the out-door performances. After the fatigues of the day, a jolly party of about twenty-five sat down to dinner at Mr. Hill's, the Herefordshire House, Newport Street, whose admirable catering soon made them forget the mishaps of the morning, and a very pleasant evening was spent.
The St. Clement's officials (Mr. Bozward, churchwarden, Messrs. Spilsbury and Fenn, overseers) and a number of the parishioners, armed with a flag and a bough of oak, took to the water like ducks, from Tearne's meadow, near the Dog and Duck, passed down the middle of the Severn to the Watermen's Chapel, where they landed to take in a part of the Cattle Market and the site of the old parish church; embarked once more, passed the Rubicon of the centre arch of the bridge, landed on the west side of the river, opposite the Cathedral, and performed all the remainder by land. The usual ablutions, bedaubings, scramblings, and so forth, were not forgotten. Afterwards the party dined at the very comfortable hostelry of the Dog and Duck.
A word or two on the origin of the above old ceremony may not be misplaced here. We find that formerly it was the custom to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on one of the three days before Holy Thursday, or the feast of Ascension, when the minister, accompanied by the churchwardens and parishioners, was wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and to preserve the rights and properties of the parish. To this Wither alludes in his "Emblems" (1636), as follows:
"That every man might keep his own possessions,
Our fathers us'd, in reverend processions,
With zealous prayers and praiseful cheere,
To walke their parish limits once a yeare;
And well-known markes (which sacrilegious hands
Now cut or breake) so border'd out their lands,
That every one distinctly knew his owne,
And many brawles, now rife, were then unknowne."
These gang days, as they were called, not only brought to the recollection of Englishmen the settlement of the Christian faith on the soil, but they also impressed on the memory correct notions concerning the origin and nature of proprietorship in land. These religious processions marked out the limits of certain portions of land, under which the whole kingdom was contained; and in all this the principle of "God's fee" was recognised by the law and the people. The walking of the parish bounds in religious processions very materially contributed to form and keep fresh in the minds of each passing generation the terms on which property was held, and some of the duties belonging to the holding. There was a short service ordered to be read occasionally, composed of such sentences as the following: "Cursed is he that translateth the bounds and doles of his neighbour," &c. The custom of processioning (like the large majority of Christian ceremonies) was no doubt derived from the heathens, being an imitation of the feast called "Terminalia," which was dedicated to the God Terminus, whom they considered the guardian of fields and landmarks and the keeper up of friendship and peace among men. The primitive custom used by the Christians on this occasion was for the people to accompany the Bishop or some of the clergy into the fields, where Litanies were chanted and the mercy of God implored, that He would avert the evils of plague and pestilence, that He would send them good and favourable weather, and give them in due season the fruits of the earth. The boundaries in some places were marked by what they called "Gospel trees," from the custom of having the Scriptures read under or near them by the attendant clergyman. One of these trees was till lately standing at Stratford-upon-Avon. A vivid recollection of the exact extent of each parish was kept alive in the breasts of the juveniles by many kinds of practical jokes.
When religious processions were abandoned at the time of the Reformation these parochial processions also generally fell into disuse, although it was then ordered that they should be continued, but a principal cause of their discontinuance of late years was the passing of the Parochial Assessment Act in 1836, which gave power to Boards of Guardians to cause the various parishes under their jurisdiction to be properly mapped and valued. Where this was complied with, the existence of the new maps rendered it less necessary that a minute personal recollection of the boundaries of the parish should be impressed on the minds of the youthful generation by means of processions. The Worcester Board of Guardians have not availed themselves of the power conferred by this Act, for under the Parochial Assessment Act not a single parish of this city has hitherto been mapped and valued, until now that All Saints' is under contract for that purpose. The Guardians have not felt it necessary to do so, as no churchwardens or overseers have yet (1855) called upon them to exercise their powers; and it seems that the concurrence of the latter officers is necessary for the ordering of maps and valuations. Processioning, however, is still recognised by the law, for by an act passed so recently as 1844 (7th and 8th Victoria, chap. 101) power is given to charge for all necessary expenses properly incurred in perambulations and in setting up and keeping in repair the boundary stones of the parish, provided that such perambulation do not arise more than once in three years.