BEMUSED visitors joined clued-up locals to walk through the city waving sticks to honour a 600-year-old tradition yesterday.

Almost 100 people took part in the Beating the Bounds walk through Oxford, which saw clergymen and dignitaries lead the public around the parish’s boundary.

The group marked Oxford’s 29 boundary stones as they were in Anglo Saxon times, in a two-hour walk around the city.

The location of those boundary stones have changed shape somewhat over the centuries – with Boots and Marks & Spencer now featuring along the route.

The city rector, the Very Rev Bob Wilkes from St Michael at the North Gate, said: “Oxford is a place where people expect there to be tradition. We have people who live in Oxford who are aware of it and then bemused visitors who join in, and as the City Church we try to give it purpose with prayers at various points.

He added: “It was a very a poignant moment when we stopped to observe a minute’s silence at 11am following the appalling events in Manchester.

“We stopped outside the Bodleian, it was very important we did that.”