Twickenham ringing mashup (01/02/2020)

What a day this was. Special thanks goes to Simon for organising a day out in Twickenham and Mortlake, a rather lovely area in London and home to four decent and characterful towers, in each their own right. Towers featured include Mortlake, Twickenham St Mary's and All Hallows and Isleworth
We start off at Mortlake, a mixture of 1694 and 1784 ring of mixed founders. They went pretty well and once going sounded pretty alright, even though at face value they looked as if they would sound and go otherwise - but they grew on us and would happily ring there again. Despite being a few courses too short, this was probably some of the best ringing overall we acheived.
Next we head off to Twickenham no. 1, St Marys, a rather old fashioned but grand sounding 8 which feel like they are hung on massive slow turning canon retaining headstocks. Despite their details on paper they were managebale, sounded alright and overall went well considering the draft but not to be taken at rocket pace. Here, a successful quarter of Yorkshire was rung. We also met up with Ringer Thomas, who kindly uploaded some of his footage of the quarter. It was lovely actually to hear what they sounded like outside since when you're ringing of course, you only ever hear one side, so a thank you must go to him as well. The church itself looks very resplendent indeed and very well kept.
After lunch, we set off to Twickenham no. 2, All Hallows. These are essentially a mixed group of Whitechapel bells. Being a tall, thin tower hanging just under a ton 10, the tower tended to move around quite a bit creating an awful lot of additional bell movement; with some bells flying over and dropping when least expecting creating some handling challenges and some rather choppy areas within the quarter. Simon described a small similarity to Leamington Spare on a smaller scale. Ringer Thomas's video also depicts them as being really quite nice outside and again, lovely to hear them from outsdie the tower walls. Inside however, they are rather accoustically challenging and the hums have a tendency to drown the lighter bells out and in some cases make the trebles inaudable. The camera positioned where it was actually picked up a well balanced sound. A respectable quarter was scored. The church is quite modern apparently.
Last but not least, Isleworth were our next venue. In the end we decided on Bob Royal which was a good score once it got going. Housing a very clear, easy to ring little 10 in quite a cozy space. The tower looks somewhat detached from the actual church, though is sort of part of the structure through a courtyard.
We finished off the day with a trip back to the station accompanied by low flying planes, which is quite a spectacle at dark over a housing estate - what a treat haha!