Beating the Bounds is a local tradition dating back to medieval Britain and is a way of marking the boundary lines of the parish and common land. Today, boundary marker stones still surround areas of the Pevensey Levels, a site of Special Scientific Interest and historical importance in East Sussex. This practice-led research project asked participants to question their place in the local landscape and its history, thinking about how we can all work together to support environmental sustainability.
The project was led by Dr Leah Fusco (University of Kingston), Dr Jack Newman (Universiteit Antwerpen), Dr Claire Kennan (Bader College), Dr Simon Coppard (Bader College) and Julian Porter (Bexhill Museum) with support from the SSHRC-funded Environments of Change project based at the University of Waterloo and the Hailsham Pavilion.
The project began with a community event held at Herstmonceux Castle (home to Bader College) in June 2022 with a morning of talks from Dr Robert Gallagher (University of Kent), Dr Mike Bintley (Birkbeck University), and Julian Porter (Bexhill Museum) which explored the context of medieval charters, real and imagined medieval landscapes and the lost medieval village of Northeye which was located on the Pevensey Levels. In the afternoon, a group of c. 30 members of the local community, including students and faculty members from Bader College and the University of the Arts London, walked across the Levels to re-create the ‘beating of the bounds’ (including the customary bumping of the boundary stones!) During the walk attendees were able to handle objects from Bexhill Museum’s collections which related to the lost village of Northeye and experience a reading of King Offa charter (in Old English) which was granted to Bexhill in 772.
The outputs from the project included a community documentary, created by students and members of the local community in June 2022 (directed by Dr Leah Fusco), a Being Human Cafe as part of the British Academy and AHRC-funded Being Human Festival and a chapter in the forthcoming Brepols volume Environments of Change: Nature and the Human Experience in Medieval and Neo-Medieval Landscapes edited by Steven Bednarski, Simon Coppard, Claire Kennan, Caley McCarthy and Andrew Moore. The documentary was premiered at a Being Human Cafe at the Hailsham Pavilion in November 2022 and the edited volume is due to be published in 2025.