It all started when we retired to The Saddle after Monday practice night at Twyford. We already ring in many local towers for practice and services but rarely in Rutland which is close by. Your scribe did not raise his pint to his mouth fast enough and was so volunteered to organise a tour in Rutland. The date was chosen after the group consulted their electronic gizmos and 23^rd April was agreed as this was St George’s Day and gave us a very good excuse to go ringing.

Initial discussion came up with Langham, Whissendine, Oakham and Brooke. Oakham fell by the wayside as it is next to the school and ringing during term time would be disruptive. This was replaced by the recently refurbished Ashwell. A wheel failure on bell 3 the week before the tour saw Langham replaced by Exton.

After the raising of the Flag of St George (by Peter Brown) we had a ring at Twyford and then set off for Whissendine where we were met by John Brooke, a ringer and an organist. As we rang, we could hear John playing the organ, a delightful accompaniment to our ringing.

Ashwell was next – a newly restored ground floor ring of six. We were made most welcome with the ‘locals’ having provided us with tea, coffee and biscuits. Our appointed tour Photographer, Nick David, made a great video of us ringing whilst perched on a wooden stair in the ringing chamber. It showed up how good (or not!) our rope handling was. A splendid lunch was then had at the Garden Centre in Ashwell, just a few minutes from the church.

Exton, our third tower, is literally in a field – It is a large, impressive church in what is clearly a very affluent village. The bells were not the easiest to handle but we made a decent noise.

We headed to the very small village of Brooke where we were made welcome by Richard Beadman, who incidentally learnt to ring in Somerby some 60 years ago. Brooke church houses an interesting display of the bell frame restoration project. The ringing chamber is somewhat “bijou” and unfortunately one of our ringers broke bell 3’s stay. However, our “bell maintenance team” (aka Peter & Paul) came to the rescue a couple of days later to extract what turned out to be a softwood worm-ridden stay that had not been drilled properly. The stay was duly replaced with a new ash stay, so we left the ring in a better condition than we found it.

We returned for a final ring at one of our local churches, Pickwell, rounding off what had been a lovely day of ringing and socialising.

Many thanks to all who took part and made the day so enjoyable.

David Wicks