s86 The Old Stannaries of the West of England. [April, 
mornings the poles used to be decorated with flowers,* and 
that youths and maidens used to dance around them. 
The right of bounding, which could be disposed of by the 
possessor in the same manner as other property, might be 
preserved to an indefinite period, either by actually working 
the land and paying toll, or by annually “ renewing ” the 
four boundary marks on a certain day, by performing the 
operation of cutting a turf a square foot in size, and piling 
thereon some loose earth in the form of a mole-hill, t at 
each corner of the land bounded. Negledt to renew the 
bounds in any one year forfeited the right to them, and 
evidence before the Equity Law Courts of recent yearsj has 
confined the area boundable to narrow limits, although such 
limits have never been accurately defined. As to the origin 
of the bounding custom we incline to the opinion of Dr. 
Borlase,|| that the privilege was granted for the encourage- 
ment of the tinners. Possibly it may have been at first 
confined to the “ wastrell ” land of the King, who would, of 
course, derive benefit from such land being worked for tin, 
and afterwards became applied to all wastrell. It soon, 
however, grew to be a very oppressive custom for the ordi- 
nary landowner. The injustice of one man being able to 
prevent another from raising the tin that might be in the 
latter’s ground was certainly very great, and it is a matter 
for surprise that anyone upon coming into possession of 
land in Cornwall did not at once take up his own bounds, 
for we cannot find any Cornish Stannary Law which con- 
fined the holding of bounds to the tinners. The bounding 
custom in Devonshire differed from the custom of Cornwall 
in that the tinner could search in “ severall ” as well as in 
“ wastrell,” and was not compelled to pay any toll or com- 
pensation to the lord of the soil. Tin-bounding in the two 
counties has now, however, been in disuse for many years, 
and no mine at present worked is held under its tenure. 
* It is stated in a footnote at p. 318, vol. iii., of Brand’s Antiquities, that 
the poles were decorated with flowers on St. John’s Day. An old miner told 
the above-given particulars to the writer of this paper. 
f See Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis. 
+ Further particulars of the bounding custom in the West of England will 
be found in a Treatise on the Laws relating to Mines, by R. P. Collier, 
Barrister-at-Law, &c. (London, 1849), which work is a valuable digest of 
Stannary Law. See also Britain’s Metal Mines, by J. R. Pike (London, 8vo., 
i860) ; also Pryce’s Mineralogia, pp. 137 — 139, and Borlase’s Natural His- 
tory, p. 167. The Charter which principally confirmed the privilege was one 
of 33 Edward I. (A. D. 1305), and others referring to the custom are still 
extant. 
|| See his Natural History of Cornwall, Oxford : 1758. 
