Month: July 2025

by Paul Flavell

King Athelstan, the first King of England, was crowned King on 4 September 925 at Kingston upon Thames, perhaps due to its location on the border between Wessex and Mercia.  He was crowned by Athelm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who organised a new order of service in which the king wore a crown for the first time instead of a helmet. 

The good people of Kingston upon Thames decided to organise a series of events to celebrate this 1,100thanniversary, including a procession, Saxon encampment and tournament held on 26 July, unveiling of new tapestries on 4 September, a flotilla on 6 September and finishing with a carnival and Festival Choral Eucharist with the Bishop of Southwark on 7 September.

Some while ago, we were approached by Viv Endecott, a self-confessed King Athelstan fan, to see if she could bring a small group of ringers from Dorset to ring at Kingston on 26 July, during the Athelstan procession.  Their ringers came from Lytchett Matravers, Lytchett Minster, Winterborne Kingston (Dorset!), Poole and Bournemouth.  We readily agreed to this request and ringers from Kingston with Dorset connections came to help.

The Dorset ringers were unused to ringing on 10 bells so we kept to call changes and rang whilst the procession crossed Kingston bridge.  They were delighted with their ring and after the ringing we were spoken to by a lady in the church who said the ringing could be heard by the bridge and really added to the occasion!

by Paul Flavell

Wells was the venue for the Kingston ringers’ weekend outing held in stiflingly hot conditions in July. We didn’t ring at the Cathedral but some wonderful bells made up for this, starting with Ditcheat and magnificent Shepton Mallet on Friday afternoon. Fraser managed to get a ring at the Friday practice at St Cuthbert’s Wells before joining the rest of us for dinner.

On the Saturday, we rang at Wookey, where ringers were banished to the naughty corner on the 5^th bell hidden by the clock case, Westbury sub Mendip and the challenging eight at Cheddar, where there was a lock in rather than a lock out, fortunately Charlotte had a mobile signal and we were able to get the local back to let her out! Ali and Willow were very relieved to see her!

We were joined by some old friends for the day – Philip Pratt and Anna Bayley, Chris Jenkins and locals Jack Pease (the Somerset one) and Paul Wotton and were very grateful for their help as some of the bells were quite heavy. We took the opportunity of giving Philip a rope to repair.

Driving up Cheddar Gorge was a challenge due to cyclists cycling up the Gorge at five miles per hour but whizzing back down the descent. It was worth the detour to get to the Somerset Wagon where we enjoyed a pleasant lunch.   

We were joined at Chilcompton by locals Adrian and David, and this meant we were able to ring a passable course of Stedman Cinques on this lovely ground floor 12 in beautiful surroundings. We can see why Chilcompton was chosen as the venue for the National 12 Bell Competition in 2024.  

At ground floor Binegar a little boy playing in his paddling pool heard the bells and demanded that his father take him to the church to watch us ring!  He was very excited – a future recruit there I’m sure.  We finished on the heavy and extremely loud six at Croscombe and earned a very enjoyable drink at the Full Moon pub and a good curry in Wells in the evening.

Sunday morning we had arranged to join the locals on the ground floor 12 at Midsomer Norton and between us did some quite acceptable ringing.  The church goers were most interested and wondered who the visitors were.   We also rang for a service on the gallery ring at Radstock and were given a round of applause by the congregation which was a very good end to our tour!

Next year’s outing will be a more local affair – any ideas or suggestions welcome but I’m thinking of Romsey Abbey and the towers in Southampton might be a good idea.