Flitch of bacon custom every leap year. The oath to be taken was very similar to the one at Whichnoure, that "neither of them in a year and a day, neither sleeping or waking, repented of their marriage". The couple are required to kneel on sharp stones in the churchyard while taking the oath and a verse was chanted; Following the taking of the oath, the couple are then paraded around the town with their bacon in a noisy ceremony, much as at Whichnoure. The historical Dunmow flitch is known to have been successfully claimed only a total of six times, although there may
Flitch beam construction. Glulam beams were used to support the second floor and the roof. This allowed the appearance of wooden columns, while providing the necessary strength. The method for calculating the size of a flitch beam to be used in construction is straightforward, using the transformed-section method. The steel piece of the beams is imagined to be an equivalently flexible (although much thicker) piece of wood. This allows the elasticity of the entire beam to be calculated as if it were entirely made up of wood. There is modest business activity involving flitch beams with The Timber Research and Development Association