compassings

It has already been mentioned that there are doors on either side of the altar, leading to a kind of gallery or platform behind the reredos; these were designed to allow certain ceremonial compassings of the altar, and it is possible that steps led down from the platform to the ambulatory.

Bell's Cathedrals: Wimbourne Minster and Christchurch Priory A Short History of Their Foundation and a Description of Their Buildings Thomas Perkins 1874

Carvell, is furnished for him, and he shall have no other thing in charge then to search out whether any passage to the great Chan, from out the diuers windings and vast compassings of this our Ocean, were to be founde. "

The Voyage of Verrazzano A Chapter in the Early History of Maritime Discovery in America Henry Cruse Murphy 1846