Medieval boundary beating is a stroll through London's past

Most Americans are suckers for British Ceremony. There's something about the way that Brits weave ancient, often ridiculous-looking traditions into their contemporary lives that appeals to children of young countries. If you're an American expat, it's probably one of the charms that enticed you to move here.

Grown men wearing ridiculous blazers at Henley. Swan upping. Black Rod hammering the door at the State Opening of Parliament. Incinerating the Guy. The Ceremony of the Keys. I love them all, and will rearrange my schedule dramatically to get to anything of the sort. This week, fortunately, I didn't have to juggle any appointments; ancient ceremony fell right into my professional lap.

A colleague invited me along to to a meeting of the Worshipful Company of Marketors, of which she is a member. Professional networking is usually the same the world over. Listen to a presentation, have a few cocktails, work the room. Things get a lot more fun when you hook them in to London's glorious traditions of medieval guilds and parish churches.

The occasion: Beating the bounds for the parish of St. Bride's Church. Known as the journalists' church, this is a place of legend in London's communications industry. The first printing presses were set up in the alleys nearby and journalism grew to maturity along Fleet Street, which runs down the middle of the parish. It's a stone's throw from Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, storied watering hole of writers and a favourite bolthole of mine. (Story here.)

We started with a church service of exquisite traditional beauty. Officers of the organisation processed down the aisle in colourful robes of medieval origin, holding aloft signs of office like an intricately-wrought, crown-topped gold mace and a sword of state. A professional choir contributed haunting melodies, including the spine-tingling Allegri's Miserere. Even beneath a mask of scaffolding necessary for current renovations, Christopher Wren's dignified architecture lent an aura of gravity, while memorial plaques to great journalists, publishers and printers of the past reminded us of that even the most seemingly mundane of our corporate communications jobs springs from greatness.

So far, so expected. Things got more surprising as we left the church to beat the bounds. This ancient ceremony began in a time when people's identity was tightly bound up with their parish. Few people could read, and maps were rare, so public demonstrations of where the boundaries were mattered. Not just for identity. The church was once the main provider of social services, and history is filled with anecdotes of one parish dumping the indigent over the border so the other parish would have to fund their welfare. (There's nothing new in these immigration debates.) Thus, boundary marking was important, and moving markers would have been a grievous offence.

Once each year, the vicars and other church worthies would lead the congregation around the boundaries to formally mark them. The tradition continues. Bamboo canes distributed to each of us, we set out for a circular hike taking in Ludgate Circus, Farringdon Street, Fetter Lane, The Temple, a swathe of Thames riverfront up to Blackfriars Bridge, and back to Ludgate Circus. At each point where a boundary marker once stood, the vicar led us in a prayer that called to memory something of the immediate surroundings, and then we commenced beating. Three lusty, repeated bellows of "Cursed be he that removeth his his neighbour's landmark!" while pounding our sticks on the pavement below. At first we were a bit hesitant, getting to know the words and awkward beneath the stares of puzzled London commuters. By Fetter Lane we'd gotten over that, and after a few glasses of champagne served up in the garden of the Master of The Temple (I can't imagine a more august venue for a London happy hour) we were performing our duties with gusto. I like to think the folks in Southwark heard our riverside warning.

If Addison, Steele and the other scribblers of Georgian words had stumbled upon us, they would have recognised the ceremony ... but not large swathes of the parish we were circling. The famous tiers of St. Bride's steeple (reputed to be the model for the tiered wedding cake) which would have once been visible from anywhere in the parish are now almost completely hidden by other buildings. The stretch between Farringdon and Fetter Lane is now entirely comprised of gleaming, glass-sheathed office buildings. Even journalists from the mid-20th century would be puzzled, as all of those famous newspaper offices have now been put to other uses since the trade moved away.

But every footstep covers rich history. There are the now-vanished sites of the western gate into the city of London, the infamous Fleet Prison and the homes of giants like Dr. Johnson, John Dryden and Tom Paine. The most venerable remaining architecture is in The Temple, through which the parish boundary cuts. As in so many cities, journalists and lawyers set up side-by-side. While the writers have gone, the lawyers still occupy their gracious complex of Georgian offices around the round medieval church that once belonged to the Knights Templar.

Finished with the annual beating we retired ... probably much as our medieval forebears would have ... to recover in a pub. London may constantly evolve, but there are some things that never change.