Beating the Bounds 

A walk around the edge of England


This walk around England began in January 2022 at the beach in Birkdale, on the Irish Sea north of Liverpool, and if all goes well will end there after a journey of more than 3,000 miles lasting over ten years.  This website is a celebration of places that I find beautiful or interesting on the English coast, the Welsh border and the Scottish border, a celebration of the landscape and buildings, the history and the stories of people who lived there. 

Scroll down to see what's new on this website and an explanation of the project and of the term "beating the bounds". 

Beating the Bounds – the project

On a cold, bright day in January 2022, I walked from my family’s home to the beach at Birkdale in Southport and turned left, heading south. The aim is to make a complete circuit of the edge of England: around the coast, along the Welsh and Scottish borders. The historic practice called “beating the bounds” was a walk around the borders of a parish with the purpose of confirming the boundary (see the explanatory text below). 

Although Germany is my country of residence, England is my parish – it is the land I love, and I also love walking. If I succeed in completing the circuit, which is intended as pleasure, not an ordeal, it will take more than ten years to cover about 3,300 miles. 

Without good health and congenial companions to walk with me, I will not complete the journey, but am optimistic that in a few years' time I will approach Birkdale beach from the north, turn left, drink a pint in The Fisherman’s Rest, and arrive home without a limp.

This website

The website is not about me (except for this page), and not about what I ate and wore, when I got wet or lost. It is about the places – the ones that I find beautiful or interesting on the English coast and borders. It is a personal, subjective selection with background information,  with some personal opinions here and there.
Texts by John Sykes
Photos by John Sykes except: below left, Georg Lambertz; Height Detection (day 19), Richard Morris; images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons are credited on the relevant page. 

Maps by Birgit Weber

Safety warning. This is not a guide for walkers with exact details of how to find the way. Depending on the weather and tides, the routes that I took may be dangerous or impossible. If you want to follow in my footsteps, please use a printed map or a digital aid to navigation, and take great care. 

My name is John Sykes. I come from Southport on the Irish Sea north of Liverpool. I have spent most of my life in Cologne and have dual citizenship – British and German. I am an author of travel guides and other books, a translator of texts from German to English, and a city guide in Cologne.


Books in English

  • 111 Places in London That You Should Not Miss
  • Exploring London with Sherlock Holmes (English-only edition)

 

Books in English and German (parallel texts)

  • Exploring London with Sherlock Holmes – Mit Sherlock Holmes durch London
  • Wie ticken die Engländer? – What are the English Like? 
  • Truly Criminal – Wahrhaft kriminell 

Guided tours in Cologne 
on many themes, especially:

  • walks through the Old Town 
  • Cologne Cathedral
  • Jewish heritage in Cologne – see rhenaniajudaica.de 



Books in German: see Deutsch


Get in touch: 

kontakt [at] beatingthebounds.eu
 

Other interests:
Running: www.parkrun.com.de/aachenerweiher/
Music: sankt-andreas.de/mitmachen/ 

Heartfelt thanks to my indefatigable, weatherproof, cheerful walking companions for their support and encouragement:
Georg Lambertz (days 7–11)
Richard Morris (days 15–20, 34–37)
Martin Lehrer (days 21, 22, 45, 46)
Christian Hill (days 27–33)
May this short list grow ever longer!

Beating the Bounds – an ancient custom

Origins of the phrase
According to Collins Dictionary, to beat the bounds is “to define the boundaries of a parish by making a procession around them and hitting the ground with rods”. The origins of this go back more than 1,000 years in England. Two kinds of  beating took place: not only boundary stones or other markers were hit, but also young boys. The pain of the beating, or being bumped on a stone, was meant to burn the event into their minds, so that the course of the parish borders would remain in the communal memory for many years to come.
Why beat the bounds?

Parish boundaries mattered because they determined property rights and obligations.  It was important to stop neighbours from encroaching and to know who could be buried in the churchyard, who had to pay for church repairs and who paid taxes for feeding and housing local paupers, which was responsibility of parishes for centuries. Beating the bounds, alternatively known as “perambulating”, was often combined with processions at the church festival of Rogation in spring before Ascension Day, when the priest and parishioners prayed for a good harvest. It was also associated with drinking and riotous behaviour.
Where the tradition survives

There are survivals and revivals of the practice in many places. At Bodmin the custom was resurrected in the 1860s and involves an eighteen-mile walk followed by a game of Cornish hurling – a silver ball thrown into a pool by the mayor is carried along a fixed route. At Richmond in Yorkshire the mayor, dressed in full regalia, leads a crowd of dignitaries and citizens every seven years and wades into the River Swale where it marks the boundary. At Poole in Dorset, the border between the open sea and the harbour is established by boat. In Oxford, where the parish perimeter of St Michael at the North Gate has been obscured by building, the priest and his flock carry their willow wands into a Marks and Spencer’s store, shouting “Mark, mark!” The Liverpool Arts Lab organises a walk around the limits of Toxteth Park as a creative happening, substituting rituals of death for spring prayers for the crops. In London, St Martin-in-the-Fields allows everyone to beat its bounds virtually by means of an app, and the ancient precinct around the Tower of London is perambulated annually by Yeomen of the Guard with school children and choir boys. At the border of this precinct with the parish of All Hallows-by-the-Tower, a violent confrontation between the two sides took place in 1698, so All Hallows defends its territory with a procession. To see some entertaining footage of ceremonies held in the twentieth century, search the term on Youtube.
The tradition was carried to North America long ago and survives in New England. In Germany, too, a similar event takes place every seven years in the town of Biedenkopf, which contested the rights to a forest with a neighbouring community in 1525 and now celebrates the practice with a festival.  

The walk described on this website is a non-religious, non-violent perambulation. I have no plans to beat anybody or anything.