Hobby No.9 – Bellringing

Would you like a new and exciting hobby?
You could do a lot worse than to give bellringing a go. It developed in the 16th century, when someone hit on the idea of attaching a wheel to a swinging bell, so that it can swing right round, upside down. This means that you can pause the bell when it is in this position, and swing it back when you want. This enables the bells to be rung in sequence, unlike those on the continent, (or anywhere else in the world), where the bells just swing in their own time, and ring at random.
The picture shows a home-made miniature bell being used for practising handling a bell. The bell is balanced upside down, and when you pull the sally, (The multicoloured woollen handgrip in the rope), the bell swings round a full 360° to upside down again, and it goes “ding” as the clapper overtakes it and hits the sound-bow of the bell. You then pull the rope-end, and the bell swings back and rings again.
Ringing Church bells requires considerable coordination and skill. It takes two or three months to be able to handle a bell on your own, as you have to catch the sally as it whizzes up and down, and control a bell weighing anything up to a couple of tons! You obviously start off on a light bell, but if you have any aptitude, you may want to progress to ringing the heavy bells, which require muscles as well as skill! Here at Bloxham we have eight bells, the tenor of which, (the heaviest bell), weighs lV3 tons. The lightest bell, the treble, weighs ‘/3 ton. Once you can handle a bell, you ring them in sequence: 12345678 which we call “Rounds” because the ropes hang in a circle. When you can do this you progress to “Ringing the Changes” when we change the order of the bells every time they ring. This means you have to do mental gymnastics as well as physical ones!

We start off with the first change: 12345678 and we generate each new change by swapping adjacent pairs of bells. If we write down the changes underneath each other, we can draw a line through the path of any bell.
In the example shown, the treble (bell number 1). The resulting line is our “music”. In fact we no longer need the numbers – just the “blue line” as it is called. If you would like to come and have a go, we practise at Bloxham Church every Friday frorr 7.30 until 9.00 p.m. I normally teach people (with the bell clapper lashed so i doesn’t make a noise outside the tower) from 6.30 to 7.30. and you are welcome to come and see what happens. Bellringing is the cheapest hobby you can possibly do! You ring these very expensive instruments free of charge, and you get expert tuition, also free of charge! There is no other hobby anywhere which you can do for nothing!
It is also a very social hobby. Once you can handle a bell you can go to any Church or Cathedral in the country, and you will be invited to take part in the ringing. We also go on ringing outings where we tour round from Church to Church, and try all sorts of different numbers of bells, and weights of bells. It also provides physical and mental exercise for any age. I taught my children when they were 7, and my oldest learner was 83 when he started ringing. (He is now 85!)
Come and have a go! Alan Griffin