Beating the Bounds is an ancient custom still observed in many English parishes. The community would walk the boundaries of the parish, to share the knowledge of where they lay, and to pray for protection and blessings for the lands. Bristol boundaries - The city council called it expansion. Villagers regarded it as land -grabbing. But Bristol expanded remorselessly in the early years of the last century. Districts around Bristol are constantly prepared for a fight over what the city sees as natural growth, but which call invasion. These days, Bristol’s territorial ambitions have been put on the back-burner, despite obvious anomalies under which other councils make decisions which can have huge effects on the city, like the development of Cribbs Causeway and Abbey Wood. Few people, especially newcomers, realise how many suburbs of Bristol were independent villages until the 1930s and even later. By the end of the nineteenth century, Cotham, Clifton, Redland, Brislington and the places to the east of Lawfords Gate were still outside the city. Hundreds of better-off Bristolians moved out of the dirty, smelly centre and into what were then attractive villages or smart new estates. The city council was not pleased - it saw the refugees as enjoying all the benefits of Bristol while paying nothing towards them. It’s an argument which has rumbled on ever since. In 1891, Bristol bid for Horfield, Stapleton, St George, Hanham, Shirehampton and parts of Mangotsfield, Bedminster, Long Ashton, Henbury and Westbury-on-Trym. Locals objected fiercely, as did Gloucestershire and Somerset county councils, and Bristol backed off. Three years later it tried again, this time with a Parliamentary Bill, aimed at most of the same area plus Dunball Island, a tiny part of Somerset isolated by a change in the course of the Avon. Once again there was a fight, which uncannily foreshadows the current objections to Bristol spreading. Bristol got all the poor areas in its land claim, but not wealthy Westbury and Henbury. Sneyd Park, Stoke Bishop and north Horfield also kept their freedom and lower rates. It didn’t last. Bristol spread remorselessly (but logically), and all the once independent parishes were swept up, one by one. Brislington (once described as one of the prettiest villages in north Somerset) lasted until 1933; Henbury until 1935, and Bishopsworth until 1956. A few years ago, during the last re­organisation of local government, Bristol regained its own independence as a city and county and suggested it should take over the urban areas of Kingswood, Filton, Patchway and the vast new housing areas of Bradley Stoke. The bid failed, even though the boundaries between Bristol and Kingswood or Filton are little more than lines down streets dividing high rate council tax payers from low rate ones. Perhaps if Bristol had won, it could have repeated a ceremony of 1900 to persuade new residents they were now part of the city. It was decided to hold a formal ‘perambulation of the city boundaries’, a trip which lasted a fortnight by foot, carriage and steamer. At various places, there were bumpings to mark the boundaries and no one was safe - even the Lord Mayor and a hapless baby were bounced up and down. On the final day, 250 people boarded the steamer Britannia to fix the water boundaries. They landed at Shirehampton and Portishead to mark the line between Bristol and Gloucestershire and Bristol and Somerset respectively, and on Steep HoIm and Flat Holm islands to stake Bristol’s claim. Being in Bristol might have been more costly but there were benefits like street lighting, sewerage and police, which the suburbs lacked. And there was a fire brigade. In 1906 the Elm Tree Inn at Bishopsworth burned down. The city fire brigade refused to turn out because it was outside the boundary and city ratepayers were not affected.

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