The great thing about going on a ringing outing is the chance to experience a whole range of different towers and bells. For people who have done most of their ringing at the tower they normally ring at, the comment on the Sunday following an outing is usually on the lines of how nice it is to come back to our own bells. The group of us from Loughborough + friends who went on an outing to Staffordshire on 29th June are well versed in ringing at other towers, so the comparisons were rather drawn between the towers on the outing.
Ellastone, St Peter: 6 bells, 13cwt.
The first (of many) spiral stairs of the day. The youngest bells here were the trebles from 1788, and the ring did indeed feel like an old fashioned slow going ring. Of the back three bells, 4 and 5 still have their cannons, and they also had a tendency to not necessarily ring where you wanted them to. A curiosity driven peek behind a door in the ringing room led to a brilliant view of the nave roof. Not a bad start to the day, though we were looking forward to seeing what the other towers held for us.
Alton, St Peter: 10 bells, 22-2-2cwt.
A beautiful 1959 Taylors ring of 8, augmented to 10 by the same founder in 2022. As we were a select group of people (11 ringers up until lunch when Judith needed to leave us), the 10 bells here stretched our capabilities, so we rang call-changes, plain hunt 9 and Little Bob Royal. The rope spider here was a lovely turned wooden bell.
Our pit stop for lunch was at The Old Red Lion in Ipstones, with delicious food being brought out promptly, topped off with traditional puddings for those who chose to indulge.
Ipstones, St Leonard: 6 bells, 5-0-15cwt
The post-lunch food coma was brushed off quite easily at the next tower. The only ground floor ring of the day, the bells here were only installed in 2017. The lightness of the bells made them very easy to place, whilst not being at all flighty as small bells sometimes can be. Carlisle, Cambridge, St Clements, Single Oxford and Oxford TB were among the methods rung here.
Cheadle (RC), St Giles: 8 bells, 14-2-0cwt
On first entering the church here everyone was stunned on how ornate the inside was decorated – we even stumped up the £1 to put in the meter after ringing to turn on the lights so we could all get some photos. Up another spiral staircase to discover the carpet in the ringing room was vying for attention just as much as the décor downstairs! Some more slow-going bells for their weight, here we managed half a course of Yorkshire, 3 leads of Bristol and a plain course of Double Norwich.
The last two towers were both 6s, and were chalk and cheese to each other!
Cheddleton, St Edward Confessor: 6 bells, 11-0-18cwt
This spiral staircase was very steep and tall, and once you get into the ringing room you get the feeling that it would have helped if the floor was a couple of metres lower in the tower. A very low ceiling, coinciding with various clock wires criss-crossing lent a slightly claustrophobic feel to the tower, and some rather low sallies led to Mark finding it easiest to ring the tenor whilst kneeling! Shutting the stairway door didn’t significantly reduce the sound, which made sense once we discovered that the bells were so close they could be seen by looking up through the rope holes! Very soon after we moved onto our last tower of the day.
Horton, St Michael and All Angels: 6 bells, 8-0-23
Probably the nicest spiral stairs of the day, leading to a very nice ring of 6 – a complete ring cast in 1753, but feeling quite modern in how they ring. Here we revisited the Carlisle, and also rang London, and Plain bob, and the local who had let us in joined us and called a touch of Original. The bench which ran along the edge of balcony also had some lovely carved bells on it.
All in all a very enjoyable day out, and yes, even for us experienced ringers, it was nice to go back to our usual bells on the following Sunday morning!
Thankyou to Brenda for organising the day and inviting us along.
Rebecca Banner
[…] Comparing towers on a summer’s day […]