Ringer Ollie's Outing to Suffolk 2023
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- Опубликовано: 7 окт 2024
- 0:15 Lavenham
2:30 Bildeston
4:34 Great Finborough
6:58 Stonham Aspal
9:20 Helmingham
11:47 Grundisburgh
After a 3 year break, I managed to put together a day of ringing in Suffolk on Saturday 18th March 2023. Suffolk was especially chosen as the location to mark the centenary year of the Suffolk Guild of Ringers. Our day was packed full of good ringing, good bells and great laughs and a great time was had by all!
The day started nice and early at the impressive church of St Peter & St Paul, Lavenham. The breath-taking church holds a ring of 8 bells, with a tenor of 21-0-7cwt and tuned to 'Db'. The tenor in particular is a very superb bell, having been cast in 1625 by Miles I Graye, and sounds a near Major-Third tierce! We had some good ringing here, which got more advanced as the session progressed as more ringers arrived. Starting with Rounds and Call Changes, we moved onto Grandsire Triples and ending with our special method of the tower, Duffield.
Moving onto our second tower of the day we arrived at St Mary Magdalene, Bildeston. The tower of the church stands out from the style of the rest of the church, but there is a good reason for this. The tower collapsed in May 1975 however fortunately the bells had been removed prior due to the work being done on the tower. They simply built a wooden box on the top of the remaining walls, and hung the bells back in it. There is now a ring of six bells, with a tenor of 14-0-25cwt and tuned to 'E'. The bells go very well and sound decent, especially when pushed along. The tenor has a bit of odd-struckness to it but that is easily correctable when ringing. Some really good ringing was had here, with Cambridge, Norwich, Plain Bob and even Grandsire Minor!
Off to our pre-Lunch tower of St Andrew, Great Finborough. The tower is known locally as 'The Steeple' and at the top of it are a delightful ring of six bells They were cast by John Taylor & Co in 1909. The tenor weighs 12-2-12cwrt and is tuned to 'G'. the bells go very well and sound really nice. We had a great range of ringing here. From Rounds and Call Changes, to Cambridge, Kent, Toby calling his touch of Plain Bob Minor and ending with a touch of Original, followed by a lower with a great catch in Tittums.
The band dispersed for Lunch with some heading with me to The Barns at Stonham Aspal. I still can't, and probably never will, get over the fact that @Mr_SaltyChip eating breakfast (with Chips) for lunch... Margaret and Bob bid us farewell here, as Jeremy and Cherril joined us!
The post-Lunch tower was St Mary & St Lambert, Stonham Aspal. The tower here is similar to that of Bildeston with it being wooden topped with the bell frame inside it. The tower has a ring of 10 bells, with the tenor weighing 23-0-18cwt and tuned to 'Eb'. The bells are incredibly difficult to ring, with the ropes being quite majorly drawn on top of the rope guides. In the recordings the volume of the bells is brought out quite well, but when actually ringing there in the flesh it is almost impossible to hear the bells at all from the ringing room. The bells are very odd-struck, especially around the back. Ringing here started off simple, with Rounds and Call Changes. As we got more familiar with the bells we reached for greater things! A touch of Grandsire Caters followed by Little Bob Royal being the highlights. For the first time in a long time I spent most of my time when ringing not actually touching the floor, with the tenor being incredibly difficult to turn in. Ringing here was in homage to Mr Clements peal of Grandsire Caters on the 9th coming round in 2 hours and 47 minutes!
Our penultimate tower of the day was St Mary, Helmingham. After a puzzle of how to find the way into the ringing gallery, we got there. The tower holds a wonderful ring of 8 bells, with a tenor of 17-3-16cwt and tuned to D. The bells are a complete octave cast by Thomas II Mears in 1815. They were rehung in 2011 by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and are absolute joys to ring and listen to! After raising all eight bells in peal, we rang a wonderful touch of Stedman Triples (with it coming through Queens almost perfectly!) followed by Call Changes. The church itself is a hidden gem, as down the Nave are some spectacular memorials which are simply breath-taking!
The final tower of the day was St Mary the Virgin, Grundisburgh. The red brick tower here holds what used to be the lightest ring of 12, with the tenor (following recasting by Taylors, Eayre & Smith in 2008) now weighing 9-2-24cwt and tuned to 'G'. With a tenor this light one would expect the front bells to be flightly and difficult to handle, but this certainly isn't the case! All the bells handle very well, and are easy to strike. Even though the bells are hung on two levels, they are all very easy to hear in the ringing room and are quite pleasant to listen to outside. Ringing here featured Call Changes and Little Bob Maximus.
I really should of come on that ringing outing to Suffolk. Anyway lovely bells though. I also recognise one of the ringers who is at lavenham on the 6. I ring with her on Mondays at ditchingham 🔔
And the ringer on the 5th two. I’ve rung with him at Brooke and ditchingam before
Stonham are actually grand sounding bells when you hear them outside. Just a shame they are so hard to ring and so quiet inside. Bildeston has a lot of family history for me. My 5 times great grandfather rang a couple of peals there in the 1840s and as far as we know an unbroken chain of our family have at least rung there (if not pealed) since. Our 5x great grandfather is buried in the churchyard with a poem about bellringing on his grave
Hope you leant on the wall next to the fourth at Grungebucket, quite a lot of tower sway there. The fourth used be quite tricky.
stonham aspal are thomas mears bells pack and chapman gillett and johnson and thomas lester
also grundisburgh sound like melbourne derbyshire which are 4 eijsbouts bells the rest john taylor
have you rang at mattishall yet? just out of curiosity.
I have, yes! They are really difficult! Do you have Discord or anything I can send you some videos on?
I don’t have discord but I can download it later. And they certainly do take some work😂