BEATING SAVOY BOUNDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 708, 6 July 1929, Page 11

BEATING SAVOY BOUNDS

BOY IN DRAINPIPE The ancient ceremony of beating the bounds of the Manor of Savoy, a tiny, but important part of London, took place recently. The manor was established in 1245 and has been part of the Duchy of Lancaster since the reign of Henry HI. The procession of ten choir boys of the Savoy Chapel and 15 jurymen, carrying white willow wands and led by the beadle in his mediaeval costume, crossed and recr.ossed the Strand, holding up the traffic as they visited the boundary plaques. These plaques, iron plates embossed with three lions rampant and surmounted by the crest of the Duchy of Lancaster, are found in most unexpected places. There is one on the wall of the Lyceum Theatre stage, another near the cellars of the Hotel Cecil, several along the Embankment, one down a drainpipe in the Middle Temple gardens, and another in the basement of Child's Bank in Fleet Street. These were visited and beaten by the willow wands. Sometimes ai chorister was lifted on the shoulders of his fellows, and in the Temple Gardens the tiniest boy in the choir was lowered head first down the drainpipe.