“1560. Item, for bread and drink for the parishioners that went the Circuit the Tuesday in the Rogation Week, 3s. 4d.”
“Item, for bread and drink the Wednesday in the Rogation Week, for Mr. Archdeacon and the Quire of the Minster, 3s. 4d.”
“1585. Item, paid for going the Perambulacion, for fish, butter, cream, milk, conger, bread and drink, and other necessaries, 4s. 8½d.”
“1597. Item, for the charges of diet at Kensington for the Perambulation of the Parish, being a yeare of great scarcity and deerness, £6 8s. 8d.”
“1605. Item, paid for bread, drink, cheese, fish, cream, and other necessaries, when the worshipfull and others of the parish went the Perambulation to Kensington, £15.”
By way of accessories, the customs of “whipping” and “bumping” gradually came to form part of the perambulation ceremony. In order that the boundaries of the parishes might be indelibly impressed on the minds of the younger portion of the community, it was deemed advisable to bump some promising boy painfully against the boundary stones; or better still, to publicly whip him while he strove to impress on his memory the exact position of the same land-marks.
As a set off against this public humiliation, the boys had a present of money given to them, and accordingly there appears an entry in the Chelsea parish books, in 1670, as follows:—
“Given to the boys that were whipt, 4s.”[20]
The process of “bumping” has been carried on until quite recently, for on June 8th, 1881, the Guardian reported a case in which three men who were engaged in “Beating the Bounds” were fined £5 each for forcibly “bumping” the senior curate of Hanwell. They met the curate and “asked him to go and be ‘bumped.’ Upon his declining, two of the defendants took hold of his arms and dragged him to the stone, one of the party taking him by the leg and lifting him bodily from the ground. On reaching the stone, they ‘bumped’ him against a man.”