common riding

plural common ridings · alternative Common Riding · alternative Common-Riding

1. An annual festival in some Scottish towns, in which people conduct a ceremonial procession around the boundaries of the town in order to delineate the area and check for encroachment by neighbouring landowners.

   This flag, or at least a copy of it, is said to have been borne at the annual 'common riding' ever since.

   1906, Alexander Porteous, The Town Council Seals of Scotland, page 145

   2 more examples

   It was this folk-moot which instituted the common riding and invested it with all the religious ceremonial which primitive religion attached to every event in the life of its votaries.

   1898 July, W. E. Wilson, chapter 1514, in The Border Magazine, volume 3, number 30, page 140

   Because the order of each summer's common ridings is printed on the soul of native Borderers, it can be difficult to find the sequence written down anywhere.

   2011, Alistair Moffat, “The Borders: A History of the Borders from Earliest Times”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

plural Common Ridings

1. alternativeAlternative form of common riding.

   The great day of the whole year in Selkirk is that of the Common Riding, the Riding of the Marches of the town's property.

   1913, Andrew Lang, John Lang, Highways and Byways in the Border, page 270

   2 more examples

   There are four genuine or 'real' Common Ridings in the Borders: Selkirk Common Riding, with its 'Casting the Colours' ceremony, dates from the early 16th century; Harwick Common Riding was first recorded in 1640; Langholm Common Riding, which Hugh MacDiarmid loved to attend, dates from 1816, although the Langholm marches were perambulated before then; finally, Lauder Common Riding, like many other traditional customs, lapsed in the 19th century but was revived in 1911 to commemorate the coronation of George V.

   2007, Michael Lynch, The Oxford Companion to Scottish History, page 507

   It is the duty of the band to waken Hawick and to alert its folk, known as Teries, that today is the Common Riding, the loudest, proudest day in the town's calendar.

   2014, Peter Ross, Daunderlust: Dispatches from Unreported Scotland