legends · 3 min read ·
Beating the Bounds
A parish walks the bounds on Ascension Day and returns with one more than set out.
**Extract from the Vestry Book of St. Oswin's, Harrow Edge (1741)**
*Order of the Perambulation of the Bounds, to be kept every seventh year on Ascension Day.*
1. The company shall assemble at the church porch at six in the morning, thirteen in number, being the minister, the two wardens, and ten parishioners of good standing.
2. The company shall proceed by the old way to the first stone, at the mill-race, and strike it with willow wands, and speak the parish name.
3. The company shall visit in order the stones of the bounds, being fourteen in number, and at each strike and speak.
4. At the fourteenth stone the company shall touch the stone with the hand and not with the wand, and shall return by the old way to the porch.
5. And let it be observed: that the number returning be the number departing.
*In the margin, in a later hand: Thirteen. Count at the porch.*
· · ·
**Walkers' log — Perambulation, 22 May (St. Oswin's Parochial Church Council)**
**06:02.** Assembled at the porch. Thirteen present: the vicar (Rev. A. Lund), churchwardens R. Pym and S. Gale, and ten parishioners. Photograph taken by the porch. Thirteen faces.
**07:10.** Stone 1 (mill-race). Struck and spoken. Thirteen.
**08:35.** Stone 4 (bridle gate). Struck and spoken. Thirteen. Vicar noted that the old way is overgrown in places and the OS map shows the path ending a hundred metres short of Stone 5. We went by the old way regardless.
**10:20.** Stone 9 (the thorn). Struck and spoken. R. Pym observed the thorn has come into early leaf. Thirteen.
**11:45.** Stone 13 (the long barrow). Struck and spoken. Thirteen. We rested ten minutes and drank water. Somebody said we were making good time.
**12:30.** Stone 14. The vestry book says there are fourteen stones. The map shows thirteen. We found Stone 14 in a hollow beyond the barrow, a low grey block with no inscription. The company stood round it and the vicar read the order aloud.
**12:36.** Touched the stone, by hand, in turn. S. Gale touched last.
· · ·
**Walkers' log (continued)**
**12:41.** Began the return by the old way. Walking in single file. Vicar counted aloud at the field gate. Fourteen.
**12:42.** Vicar counted again. Fourteen. Mr Pym counted, and got thirteen. Mrs Gale counted, and got fourteen. We counted off by name, and every name was answered, and nobody could say whose was the last.
**13:30.** Reached the porch. Photograph taken, as a record. Fourteen persons in the frame. The vicar says he does not recognise the fourteenth. The fourteenth is standing between Mr Pym and Mrs Gale, one hand raised to the others' shoulders, and is smiling at the camera like someone being photographed at a family occasion.
**13:35.** I have gone through the group one by one. Each of us can name the person to the left and to the right. In the photograph, each of us has the same two neighbours as in the photograph this morning, and the fourteenth stands between them.
· · ·
**Note added by Rev. A. Lund (23 May)**
The order says to ensure the number returning is the number departing. It does not say what to do if it is not. The old vestry book has no further pages.
I have checked the register of the perambulation. The book was signed by each walker at the porch this morning, thirteen signatures. At the foot of the page, below the last signature, there is a fourteenth line, in a hand I have not seen before. It is clear and upright, the ink dark, the nib broad.
It reads: *Parish.*