The Rector also wished us well and explained the politically incorrect origins of the expression
‘beating of the bounds’. The boys of the parish were apparently beaten on the boundary stones
during the walk, so that they would remember where the boundary was. Nowadays of course we
would have to beat both boys and girls.

Dear Faldage: you have wounded me deeply. (almost halfway through my thin epidermis) to suggest I would present an Urban Legend as fact. Boo-hoo-hoo. I went back and got a second one this time wirh URL. For the doubting Davids.


http://www.feltwellnorfolk.freeserve.co.uk/written/beating_bounds.htm

Gradually the religious side of these perambulations died out and they degenerated more or less into an occasion for practical
jokes and horse-play. Boys would be flogged at the boundaries to fix them in their memories; or ducked in the river if it
constituted a boundary. The boys were generally compensated for their troubles; the following items are from the Church
Accounts for 1670 at Chelsea:-

There are many URLs about ceremonial "beating the bounds" of large pieces of property in England.