Ralph Whitlock, in his book Salisbury Plain, published in 1955, writes:
Until about the middle of the nineteenth century the villagers of Maiden Bradley regularly practised the old custom of beating the bounds. An adventurous affair it must have been, for the boundaries of the parish are lengthy and run over some very broken country. Starting from the Longbridge Deverill road, the party would climb Brimsdown Hill (933 feet), down again to Newmead Farm (517 feet), up Rodmead Hill (732 feet), down into Danes’ Bottom on the far side and up again to the Mere-Kingston Deverill road, then back over Rodmead Hill again and down to the stream by Rodmead Farm (500 feet), up to Long Knoll (945 feet) and along the crest, down to Homestalls (700 feet), and then up a gradual incline to the Somerset county border at Yarnfield Gate (787 feet). From there the parish boundary coincides with the county one along the wooded crest and down the slope, past Gare Hill, to the corner of Little Bradley Wood (341 feet). Leaving the county boundary there, it climbs through the woods to a height of over 700 feet and arrives back at the starting point (650 feet). I don’t know exactly how far the circuit is but imagine it to be somewhere in the region of twenty miles! The men of Maiden Bradley must have been pretty hardy even to attempt it.
However, it had its compensations. Old inhabitants have told how a cart laden with provisions, and doubtless with plenty of ale, accompanied the bound-beaters. There were also diversions. If they met a stranger on the way they invited him to have a meal, but if he accepted they dug a shallow hole, stood him upside down in it, and beat him soundly with a shovel! Once it is recorded they tried this procedure with some silk-workers on their way to the silk works at Mere, and a stand-up fight ensued, the ill-feeling being only settled by apologies all round afterwards.