Ringing Forums

An interesting and good point John. You often hear the assumption that all ringers much be good church-going folk, and indeed I know of one church where the incumbent insists that all ringers are regular attendees.

When St. Margarets' Rochester had their bells brought back into use about 10 years or so ago they were run from the ground floor whereas previously they had been rung from the ringing chamber. The first wedding for which they were rung it was clear that ringing could only be by sight, the organ drowned everything. They now have a rope pulley on the hinged trapdoor in the floor of the old ringing chamber so that it can be raised whilst ringing and sufficient sound comes down for the ringers to hear the bells. A glass screen has also helped to deaden the organists contribution!

Precisely. People are people whatever their heritage, which is why I find Tom's dissection of the Ely team by age, race and sex irrelevant, except where it directly impinges on physical ability. Included in the latter caveat is continuity; an ageing team will need replacing eventually, as I well know having had to retire from ringing.

What on earth has either the sex or the racial background of people to do with maintaining bells? All that matters is competence and availability.

<grin> More to the point, are the bells ever used or simply forgotten and allowed to deteriorate in splendid isolation?

Numbers are important though, the more members an association has the more weight they can exercise when local authorities or governmental bodies (and dare I suggest ecclesiastical ones?) are involved. The grass roots ringers that you mention though include, I fear, many who only ring at their own tower and who see no point in joining the association. Your quarter peal courses sound fantastic, but are irrelevant to someone who rings plain hunt by the bell numbers and regards methods as beyond them.

Your last paragraph is very true. There are also a number of ringers who see no point in joining their local association and who just ring at their local tower. Even if they don't want to join and pay the subs, having them "on the books" somehow would help in the numbers game; see "UNESCO status for bell ringing?".

Serious answer: yes. It's a unique tradition going back some hundreds of years, exactly what should be chosen.

Frivolous answer: given some practice nights, isn't already included under "pantomime"?

Many years ago the tower where I was trained had a flight of steps going up to the bells (10, tenor 30 cwt) from within the ringing chamber. Access to the latter was via a locked door. All went well until we had a regimental service. The bells had been left raised after morning service ready for ringing for the regimental service. When we arrived we discovered that some anti-terrorist branch of the police (special branch?) had been up there unaccompanied inspecting the bell chamber for bombs or similar. After that an extra padlock appeared and the church authorities told in no uncertain terms just how lucky the police had been to avoid serious injury.

The trouble was that it just seemed "different", not clearly broken. Suspicious, but not convicted.

In my old tower there isn't a further lock to stop you going from ringing chamber to bell chamber, the ladder is within the locked ringing chamber. Indeed the trap has to be kept bolted to stop vandals breaking into the church via the bell chamber.

Some years ago we had an incident were a learner commented "that bell set easily". A more experienced ringer then commented that it seemed a bit deeper set than normal. Because we had access to the bells I was able to nip upstairs and see a cracked stay with a pronounced bend, clearly just waiting to catch an unwary ringer out. I rang the bell down and practice night could continue safely, albeit with one less bell.

From something I wrote about the USS Pittsburgh (CA-4) some years ago:

After the refit she [USS PIttsburgh] sailed for Honolulu to become flagship US Asiatic fleet. She took on several hundred new recruits, which was to lead to a catalogue of errors during the passage. Under way she came to the rescue of HMS Wakakura, a British minesweeper with engine troubles. Eventually it was decided to tow the Wakakura and the captain is quoted as saying “Now remember, we have a ship of the Royal Navy on the towline. It's your job to see that every action of ours reflects nothing but good seamanship to our cousins astern”. Pittsburgh had the loudest bell in the fleet, clearly audible in other ships. At midnight a raw recruit rang twelve single strokes instead of the correct 4 double strokes. All hell let loose, this was the alarm for a fire on board. The skipper growled “I only hope those Britishers think we did not have a fire”. As dawn broke the tow parted but a new line was passed. The honour of the Pittsburgh was restored – until the skipper reached the bridge and saw the “Stars and Stripes” flying upside down, a signal that the ship was in distress! The captain left the bridge with his head in his hands.

As John said "incompetence".

The "Brides of Enderby" is apparently a special peal rung from Boston Stump to warn the townsfolk of danger.¹ The name supposedly commemorates the womenfolk of Mavis Enderby² a village at least 10 miles away as the crow flies. The church there has three unringable bells, the earliest of which is c. 1450, the others 1688 and 1819. Dove doesn't mention any earlier bells, so the peal can't have been rung there. I've not been able to find why the womenfolk needed commemoration.

Felstead peal records for Boston Stump³ go back to 1738 but none of them mention "The Brides of Enderby".

The website https://allpoetry.com/The-High-Tide-on-the-Coast-of-Lincolnshire gives the full poem but raises the question as to where the River Lindis was. Local knowledge here would be welcome.


¹https://web.archive.org/web/20050217084857/http://www.enderbymuseum.ca/thepast/geog/bride.htm
²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavis_Enderby
³https://felstead.cccbr.org.uk/tbid.php?tid=599

To save you wasting time, I've skimmed the books below and there is no mention of ringing "backwards".

Stedman: Campanalogia
Wilson: Change ringing
Coleman: The Bellringer's Bedside companion
Harrison & Lewis: The New Ringer's Book
Snowdon: Ropesight
Powell & Powell: The Ringers' Handbook

It rings a distant bell :) in the back of my mind. I can't help with references though. In 1381 there would probably be no more than 3 bells in a tower and they would be rung by a lever so there wouldn't be the control of today. Having said that, I'm sure I've read it somewhere.

FYI, without signing in you are allowed to read 2 free articles per month.

A nightmare scenario has just occurred to me. When the PCC are presented with a large bill to keep the bells ringing, or when there simply aren't enough ringers for a Sunday morning, then how about installing the sort of sound system seen in Mosques? A tape machine, or more likely these days a PC, attached to a powerful amplifier and speaker at the top of the minaret. Easy to transpose to a control machine downstairs and the speakers up in the tower. Open up, press the button and a perfectly struck 15cwt 8 start on Plain Bob Triples. How to pay for it? Well there's a couple of tons of unused expensive bronze up in the loudspeaker chamber that the local scappie would give a good quote for ...

(OT)

Methodist circuits, in theory, provide a minister for each church (rotate after 3 years I think) — Alan C

Sorry Alan but that's not accurate. A circuit will usually have more churches than clergy, this has always been the case. The superintendent minister (aka "the super") has a similar role to a bishop (in American practice he is called a bishop), approving preachers (ordained clergy, local preachers, on note and on trial), and being responsible for dogma and discipline. One big job every quarter is drawing up the preaching plan to ensure that all the ministers rotate around the churches in the circuit. Local preachers are free to be more restrictive in their availability. The rotating clergy of course are required for Holy Communion which is much less frequent than in the CofE. Pastoral care of the churches is from a particular minister. A minister might easily have four churches, one larger on and then smaller ones, a bit like a united benefice.

[warning: I may be getting a little dated here] When a minister is leaving a circuit the stewards of the churches under his care will invite [whole process simplified] a new minister for a period of four years. If approved by Conference then the new minister will take up his post on 1 September, thus there is no interregnum (except in the case of a death). As the four year spell comes towards the end, if the stewards are happy they may issue an invitation to extend the minister's stay. In the 1980s (I did say I might be a bit dated) common stays were 6 or 7 years.

The Keltek Trust handled the moving of the 25cwt 8 from the Victoria Tower, Chatham to Gorran, Cornwall. See http://kent.lovesguide.com/tower.php?id=41 for details of the bells and their original setting. See https://dove.cccbr.org.uk/tower/14529 for the bells (including augmentation) in their current setting.

Hmmm, "super-benefice" sounds suspiciously like a Methodist circuit. "parish hubs", well each Methodist Minister has several chapels within the circuit under his care. "train laity to take on clergy responsibilities", well of course Methodism has always relied on its Local Preachers to take a larger percentage (possibly majority) of services. Perhaps Welby has been studying Wesley?

Oh and BTW, I've never heard of a Methodist Church with a ring of bells. :-(