The Perambulation of Parishes and Riding of the Marches

 The old custom of perambulating - carefully walking - the boundaries of parishes, burghs and estates is no longer practised in Britain, except in a few places. (In Scotland, Lanark is one example of where it still occurs.) Boundaries would have been important, in temporal and spiritual terms, since pre-historic times and we know that Roman and Anglo-Saxon societies had formalised rituals for marking the perimeters of lands. Perambulations in medieval Angus typically relied on prominent natural landmarks (rivers, hills, forests) and man-made features (roads, bridges, mercat gates) as boundary markers. Perambulations combined legal, social, and spiritual functions. In Scotland, we have less early records of this important collective recognition of where community territory ended. This post looks at the scattered local records, and if they do not tell a complete tale, at least they give some small glimpses into the far past.

  One theory (among many) about the purpose of Pictish sculptured stones is that they had a territorial significance. If not quite as crude as 'keep off this land', they may have visually advertised which kindred or important landowner owned the particular estate on which they were situated. There's nothing to say that - if this was indeed the case - that the stones might have contained other meanings, served other purposes. 

                                                                Kinblethmont Pictish Stone

                                                    

   Coincidentally or one, one of the early records of officials formally marking the boundaries of lands comes from the estate of Kinblethmont, Inverkeilor parish, which was a possession of Arbroath Abbey, which seems to have been a Pictish estate, jusdging by the presence of a Class I Pictish stone there. The first record of the perambulation here was in 1219, and one point of interest is the thorough Gaelic character of the names of the men who took part in the proceedings:

Gilpatrick mac Ewen, Dunachy filium Gilpatrick, Malcolmum fratrem Thayni de Edevy, Gillecryst fil' Ewen Costr', Gillecryst hominem com' de Anegus, Keraldum fratrem Ade Judicus, math'm filium mathei filii Dufyth de conan.

Another list has the following:

Hugh of Cameron, sheriff of Forfar, Angus son of Earl Gillebride of Angus, Robert of Inverkeilor, W de Monte Alto, Adam of Nevay, Donald son of Macbeth MacYwar, John ab of Brechin, Morgrund his son, Adam de Bonvill’ [Benvie?], Robert of Rossie, Duncan of Fearn, Adam steward of Arbroath, Thomas son of Richard son of Adam Garmund, Gille Isu, thane of Idvies, Nicholas brewer of the king, Roger, mareschal of the bishop of Brechin, Walter de Balliol.

   The records of Arbroath Abbey record another perambulation of Kinblethmont in 1227, and the names again are a mixture of Celtic and English-Norman. The centuries after the Scottish take-over of Pictland (if it was such) are fascinating for the glimpses of personal names from different ethnicities in Angus:

Kerald Judex de Anegus, Adam Judex domini Regis, Angus filius comitis, W de Monte Alto, Duncanus de fernevell, Giladr’ mac leod, Ricardus flandrensis, Gilescop mac camby, Patric fothe serviens domini episcopi sancti Andree, David senescallus de Rostynoth.

   The dispute seemingly continued because at the king's court in Forfar in 1227 the 'good men of Angus' were summoned to swear an oath to the vailidity of the 1219 perambulation.

   Nearby, the lands of Conon were also owned by Arbroath Abbey and a perambulation took place here in 1254, and the list of those present shows a decline in Gaelic names:Magister Nicholas of Hedon, dean of Moray, Sir John Wishart, Sir Henry the knight, socius of Peter Maule, Duncan of Fethyn, Roger of Balcathie, Duncan the judew, Mael Isu of Idvies, Eustace of Glasterlaw, Duncan of Downie and many others. Although some men were upper class, others were from their households or officials of local government.

   One of the pragmatic reasons for perambulations was to settle disputes between adjoining estates when there was some dispute about them. With or without the need for perabulations, disagreements about the extent of lands proliferated. The monks of Arbroath Abbey and Sir Thomas of Rattray disagreed about the extent of Kingoldrum. Rattray and his wife acknowledged the extent of the land in justiciary court on 1253. The monks were not shy in pursuing landowners who impinged on their territory. Also in 1253, Alan Durward was forced to accept the abbey's statement about the border between their lands and his. The following year, the abbey pursued Peter Maule regarding the boundaries between their lands of Conon and Tulloch and his territory of Panmure. The two parties met on Cairnconon Hill on 22nd June 1254, and neutral men were present, including Sir William de Brechin, Gilbert de Haya and Robert de Montealto.

   The following centuries have a peppering of references to perambulations in different parts of the county, including one of the lands of Auchterlony in 1397, when one of the participants was Michael Durham of Grange.

   The larger burghs in Angus also made great show of inspecting their marches from medieval times onwards, with much religious pomp and ceremony. Dundee's march ceremonies went into abeyance at the Reformation, but it was brought back in a more secular form in 1582, with a resolution stating that the provost, bailies, council and deacons of craft should annually on the 3rd of May pass through the burgh. They would visit all communities and made note that the gates, wynds, vennels, passages and middens were all in good order. The ceremony (if it might be called that) continued through the 17th century. On 21st April 1668 the records state:

The Counsell ordaynes that all those in the roll for ryding of the townis merches be warnit to that effect, each person under the payne of fyve poundis Scots, to be payit by each contravener absenting himself the tyme of ryding the merches prescryit by the former acts.

   On 12th May 1668:

The Provest maid report that the townis merches were redden this day aucht dayes, and that they had found on merch stone in the Magdalen gair out of the way, and thairfor ordayned to provyd ane other to be put out in the place thairof; as also gives power to the provest, bailies, and the Dene of Gild to meet with the laird of Monorgane for righting the passage of the water of Dichty in relation to their mylnes; as also ordayne the thesaurer to provyd ane march stone to be placed quhair thair was on formerlie; as also ane other marh stone at Baldovalne mylne. It was ordered that the interruption maid at the ryding vpon ane bark as they did ryd downe to the Craif be the eastmost end of their march be extracted, and layed up in the townis chest.

   The riding of the marches was a formal and splendid event in Arbroath, perhaps a result of its long association with the abbey. On 12th March 1778 the provost, bailies and council, with by their officers, e deacons of the trades, and by the land labourers or carters, all on horseback, and with the accompaniment of music, perambulated the burgh bounds, the proceedings of the day being wound up with considerable festivity. Anciently, the ceremony of riding the marches was frequently performed. It was one of the customary celebrations in connection with St. Thomas’s Day. 

   Forfar has long been fortunate to possess extensive lands held by the town council for the benefit of the community, dating back to time immemorial. Traditionally, the riding of the marches—was conducted every three years until the outbreak of the First World War. However, it has never been revived in its original form. In more recent times, these ridings evolved into inspections of  farms and properties. An annual water inspection was introduced and has, to some extent, taken the place of the traditional riding. Although no formal riding has taken place since before 1914, the council has occasionally dedicated a day to visiting and inspecting all the farms within the town’s holdings.

  In 1965  a symbolic riding of the marches was organised. The chosen date was July 3, concluding Visitors’ Week. Flags and banners adorned public buildings as, at 9:30 a.m., the  officials gathered at the Cross—once the site of the ancient Mercat Cross, the traditional assembly point for burghal processions—outside the town and county hall. They were warmly welcomed by a large crowd of townsfolk and visitors. The town clerk read the proclamation of the riding. The procession, headed by a piper and followed by supporters, set off and marked certain significant points by planting a tree.

The first stop was at North Mains Farm, then they went to the Lemno Burn where the Forfar marches with the lands of Carsegray. A second tree was planted at Pitreuchie. They then climbed Balmashanner Hill and a third tree was planted. The fourth and last tree was planted by the Dean Bridge, where the town’s lands meetthose of the Earl of Strathmore. 

The Forfar Perambulation at Balnashanner Hill

Works Consulted

Anonymous, The Municipal History of Dundee (Dundee, 1878).

Sir Robert Douglas, The Baronage of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1798).

Rev. James Ogilvy Haldane, Kingoldrum Parish, New Statistical Account, Volume XI (1845).

Matthew H. Hammond, A Prosopographical Analysis of Society in East Central Scotland. circa 1100 to 1260, Unpublished Phd. Thesis (Glasgow, 2005).

F. Marian Macneill, The Silver Bough, Volume 4, The Local Festivals of Scotland (Glasgow, 1968).