Boundaries in landscape history

Parish boundaries are of particular interest to landscape historians, since they are often inherited from land holdings that date back to the middle Saxon period or earlier.

The event was deliberately organised to make it as memorable as possible, and to hand-down an intergenerational memory of the precise boundaries.

For civil parishes, the ceremony may have begun with the Poor Relief Act 1601, or much older for the 'Processioning' of churches, dating from Anglo-Saxon times.

[5] Older parishioners, and local officials, would walk the route as accurately as possible, pointing out all the various landmarks and boundary markers along the way, both natural and deliberate artefacts.

A distinctive feature of these perambulations was the performance of peculiar rituals with the youngest walkers, in order to make particular points memorable.

These could include being passed through the window of a local pub, rather than walking through the door, being carried across a stream, or being hung upside down by the ankles and their head 'bumped' on the grass.