Middlesex.
In St. Magnus and other city churches in London, the clergy are presented with ribbons, cakes, and silk staylaces.—N. & Q. 1st S. vol. ix. p. 9.
Northamptonshire.
It is customary to go in triennial processions on Holy Thursday, to perambulate the parishes and beat the boundaries, for the purpose of marking and retaining possession; hence the ceremony is called possessioning. The parochial authorities are accompanied by other inhabitants and a number of boys, to whom it is customary to distribute buns, &c., in order to impress it upon their memory should the boundaries at any future period be disputed.—Baker, Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, vol. ii. p. 131.
In the town of Northampton the ceremony of beating the bounds is termed “beating the cross.”
Northumberland.
On Ascension Day, says Mackenzie in his History of Newcastle (1827, vol. ii. p. 744), every year the mayor and burgesses of Newcastle survey the boundaries of the River Tyne. This annual festive expedition starts at the Mansion-House Quay, and proceeds to or near the place in the sea called Sparhawk, and returns up the river to the utmost limits of the Corporation at Hedivin Streams. They are accompanied by the brethren of the Trinity House and the River Jury in their barges.
Brockett mentions the smock-race on Ascension Day, a race run by females for a smock. These races were frequent among the young country wenches in the north. The prize, a fine Holland chemise, was usually decorated with ribbons. The sport is practised at Newburn, near Newcastle.—Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 210.
Nottinghamshire.
In Rogation week the bounds of many of the parishes are still beaten with as much pomp by the beadle as ever; and it is believed that if an egg which is laid on Ascension Day be placed in the roof of a house, the building will be preserved from fire and other calamities.—Jour. of Arch. Assoc., 1853, vol. viii. p. 233.