Don’t miss this historic event! Our parish boundaries stretch over 12 miles, so the walk has been split over two weekends to enable even those with small children to take part. On Saturday 21st September we’ll start at the church, travel anticlockwise around the parish and take in the Mare and Foal Sanctuary, Uphempston and end at Lillisford Farm. On Sunday 29th September we’ll start at Lillisford Farm and include Buckyette, Winton House and Hampstead, and finish back at the church for refreshments. All 25 land-owners and tenants around the boundary have been contacted, as has the Parish Council, as it is traditional for Councillors to greet their counterparts from the neighbouring parishes at suitable places around the boundary.
All ages and abilities are welcome, as are dogs on leads. There’ll be various pit stops, but please bring a packed lunch and dress for the weather. Cars will be available at strategic places to ferry those too weary to continue back to the church. Everyone gets a handsome certificate! Volunteers would be very much appreciated.
Please register if you’d like to take part, by contacting Mike Wright (see above). This is a free event, but there’ll be a collection on the day for The Devon Air Ambulance.
Meet at Littlehempston church on Saturday 21st and at Lillisford Farm on Sunday 29th September – 9.30am both days.
Beating the Bounds is a practice that dates back to before the Norman Conquest, where members of the community walk the boundaries of the parish to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to ask for protection and blessings for the lands. 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 borders by embedding knowledge in oral traditions.