The Background: Beating the Bounds is an ancient custom still observed in many English parishes. The community would walk the boundaries of the parish, to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands.

In former times when maps were rare it was usual to make a formal perambulation of the parish boundaries on Ascension Day or during Rogation week. The priest of the parish with the churchwardens and the parochial officials headed a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, usually birch or willow, beat the parish boundary markers with them.

Sometimes the boys were themselves whipped or even violently bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember. The object of taking boys is supposed to ensure that witnesses to the boundaries should survive as long as possible. Priests would pray for its protection in the forthcoming year.

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 the borders.

Beating the Bounds in Hungerford: The tradition of walking around the limits of the Town & Manor property, ensuring that the boundary is secure and undisputed, has continued more or less regularly. It took place in 1886 and on 12th August 1892.

In the present day, it takes place over a Saturday and Sunday, usually every five years.

The entire circuit is about nine miles - but time is taken to ensure that boundaries are correct, and from time to time marker posts have to be renewed.

Beating the Bounds in Hungerford, 8 July 1913:  In 1913 the local photographer, Albert Parsons, followed the Beating of the Bounds, and his very complete photographic record, of which a small selection is included here, provides us with a wonderful insight into a particular day in the life of Hungerford.

There are a few additional photographs of Beating the Bounds in later years.

Beating the Bounds, 1.7.2000

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
Outside the Corn Exchange

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
"A Look at the Map"

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
"Bumping"

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
In the River Dun below Bridge Street

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
"A Snack by the Way" - on bridge over Kennet near Denford Mill

Beating the Bounds, Jul 1913
 

Beating the Bounds, 31 Jul 1939
"The Break" at Mill House, Eddington

Beating the Bounds, 19-20 Jul 1948
Dr Starkey-Smith
(with Fred New on his left, wearing hat)

Beating the Bounds, 19-20 Jul 1948
 

Beating the Bounds, 1978
 

Beating the Bounds, 1982