Great to have ITV’s Love your weekend in the tower and church on Monday 16 January, learning about bellringing and the heritage of All Saints Church.
Unfortunately, many of the local band couldn’t make it due to work or other commitments, but we appreciate the help of distinguished ringers lending a hand, including Chris Ridley, Caroline Prescott, Michael Uphill, Anne Anthony, Steve Mitchell and Mary Gow to name the few I spotted in the video.
Michael Uphill being filmed ringing Stedman Triples Smile for the camera Chris Ridley did a great job multi-tasking! Chris Ridley’s report in Ringing World
Standing (L-R): David, Paul (Tower captain), Kate, Chris and Gavin (Ga Vinci); Seated: Mike, So-Shan, Judith and Kate
Happy New Year from the Kingston bell ringers!
If you ever fancied having a go at bell ringing, now is the perfect time to get in touch and learn. If you start now, you will be able to take part in ringing for the King’s Coronation in May.
Ring for the King
Ring for the King
We are actively seeking to train new bell-ringers who will be able to Ring for the King when he is crowned on May 6th and after that.
Bell ringing is a wonderful hobby for people of all ages and there is something of interest to everybody, including for example:
• Teamwork – working as a team to ring changes together
• Physical and mental exercise – ringing is a technique that doesn’t involve brute strength but coordination and technique to control the bell in split second timing
• Music – creating the changes and permutations bell-ringers call music
• Social – bell ringers are very sociable people enjoying going for coffee and to the pub after ringing sessions.
• Friendship – bell-ringers have friends all over the UK and the world where bells are rung English style
Contact your local tower captain and come along and watch to get an idea of what is involved.
Learning to ring church bells is a structured process that takes a number of one-to-one sessions to be competent at ‘handling’ a bell. Once mastered, practice enables the ringer to become more confident and gain greater satisfaction from ringing alone to start with and then with the team. You don’t have to be a churchgoer, there is no compulsion to stay for services.
Sunday 4 December: Normal morning ringing. Visiting peal band in the afternoon.
Wednesday 7 December: No practice. Service ringing 6.15 pm to 6.55 pm followed by curry for those booked.
Sunday 11 December: Normal ringing morning and evening.
Wednesday 14 December: No practice. Carol service, no bells required.
Friday 16 December: Decorating our Christmas tree in church as part of the Christmas Tree festival.
Sunday 18 December: Normal morning ringing, quarter peal in the afternoon.
Wednesday 21 December: Normal practice
Saturday 24 December: Ringing 10.15 pm to 10.55 pm for Midnight Mass.
Sunday 25 December: Normal Sunday morning ringing. No evening ringing.
Wednesday 28 December: Normal practice
Saturday 31 December: Drinks and nibbles in the tower from 11.15 pm then ring in the New Year. Arrive promptly and bring your own drinks & contributions to nibbles to share.
Sunday 1 January: Normal morning and evening ringing.
Wednesday 4 January: All ringing back to normal.
Monday 9 January: Take down Christmas tree decorations.
Clockwise from front right: Surrey: 1 Kate Flavell, 2 Susan Gibbin, 3 Anne Rueff, 4 Fraser Storie, 5 Shirley McGill, 6 Oliver Thompson, 7 Noel Gibbin, 8 Paul Flavell, 9 Graeme Booth, 10 Phill Ridley
The Surrey Association were the hosts for this year’s Essex Trophy competition. We were very grateful to Ed and Val Muller for the use of Bletchingley bells their kind hospitality in laying on refreshments and Ploughman’s lunches, and for the use of the excellent Village Hall as the central meeting area.
Six teams entered to ring a full course of Yorkshire Surprise Royal, marked from the fourth lead end. Each team was given a 30 minute slot to practise and ring their test piece. Bletchingley bells are a pleasant ground floor 10, rehung in 1989 and augmented to 10 in 1991, and ideal for this competition.
The judge was Ian Roulstone from St Paul’s Cathedral, safely squirrelled away on the first floor of the church rooms next to the church. Ian commented on each team in turn and said the ringing had all been quite consistent and nice to listen to. There were very few method mistakes which is essential in a striking contest!
Ian presenting the magnificent Essex Trophy to Andrew Kelso, the Essex captain
The results were as follows: Place Team Peal speed Faults (out of 400 marks) 1 Essex 3hrs 09min 54 2 Surrey 3hrs 18min 71 3 Guildford 3hrs 20min 79 4 Kent 3hrs 20min 94 5 Sussex 3hrs 11min 108 6 Middlesex 3hrs 08min 155
Congratulations to this year’s winners Essex and thanks again to Bletchingley and Ian.
Essex will be hosting the 2023 competition on 9 September at St Mary’s Walthamstow.
Team photos
Clockwise from front right: Sussex: 1 Margaret Oram, 2 Simon Alford, 3 Ian Oram, 4 Sue Meyer, 5 Abi Fairhurst, 6 Stephen Beckingham, 7 Andrew Alford, 8 Edward Woodward, 9 David Smith, 10 Simon Meyer
Exactly 2 months ago tomorrow (at the time of writing), the Bell Ringers of All Saints, Kingston-upon-Thames had their annual excursion. 4 towers in total were rung at, in the counties of Surrey and Hampshire. Not only that, we had a scrumptious lunch halfway through at ‘The White Hart’ in Holybourne, with an attempt made for cream tea at the end of the day, but that was not quite as successful as it could have been!
St Mary, Frensham
Tower 1 was the light ring of 8 at Frensham. This was the only tower on the day which was in the county of Surrey, with the other 3 being in Hampshire. Not only that, this was also our heaviest ring on the day, with a 9cwt tenor in G.
These are a very mixed bag of bells. Until 1973, a ring of 6 by Taylor’s, Ellis I Knight, Mears & Stainbank, Robert Catlin, and an unidentified founder was present. Then, Whitechapel cast 2 trebles to make the ring of 8 we know today. In fact, they recently received a major overhaul by Taylor’s. This involved a rehang, retuning, restoration of clappers amongst other things, and the cleaning/replacement of bearings. As a result, producing a very enjoyable octave to ring on.
All Saints, Alton
Alton boasts 2 rings in the main part of the town, those being All Saints and St Lawrence. Our second tower was the former, which is in the South Western part of the town. It is located on the crossroads of Butts Road, Queens Road and the extremely fittingly named Tower Street. Diagonally opposite the church is Alton Fire Station, situated on a small raised mound which provided a great vantage point for filming the ringing.
This tower, much like the 3rd and 4th towers on the outing, has a delightful set of new bells. In this case, the ring of 6 here was installed by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 2006. They are also a light set of bells, being only 6cwt. Not only that, they are tuned to B. Making this quite a comparison to one of my home towers at Addington. One major difference between them though is that Addington sound very clear in the ringing chamber whereas Alton have much more resonating tones. It’s as if the bells have a striking tone of being muffled, but the volume of a normal bell, thus making these bells quite pleasing to listen to.
With 2 towers completed, we drove up the road to Holybourne – a suburb of Alton. This was the location of our aforementioned scrumptious lunch! My food was impossible to complain about: despite the quite large circumference of my Korean Spiced Chicken Burger (which no doubt resulted in some difficult and messy bites), the taste and texture was magnificent! Completed with chips and baked beans on the side, that was certainly one of the best pub meals I’ve ever had!
Now, on to the afternoon …
The Church of The Holy Road, Holybourne
Just metres away from the pub is Church Lane, the country lane that took us up the gentle incline to The Church of The Holy Road. This was our 3rd and penultimate tower of the day. We arrived around 30 minutes early, so we took the time so take the band photo in the churchyard. This also gave us an extra 10 minutes of ringing time as our tower-opener also arrived prematurely!
Like the previous tower, Holybourne have a full Whitechapel set of bells. Cast in 2009, they are again tuned the B and weigh 6cwt. In addition, there are 3 clock bells. 2 quarter chimes (in D and B) and the hour bell in A. These are much older, having been cast by Richard Phelps, Richard Eldridge and the Wokingham Foundry in 1600, 1728 and around 1440! For me, the ring of 8 here was very easy-going. They required little effort to keep up, and the bells I rang had no habit of suddenly dropping on you. I have to say, the rings around here are of a very commendable quality.
St Nicholas, Chawton
Following on from the outstanding 8 at Holybourne, we moved swiftly on to our 4th and final tower. Which was in the village of Chawton, similar to Holybourne, being in extremely close proximity to Alton.
Similar to Alton and Holybourne, Chawton has a complete set of bells. Not by Whitechapel though, this time they were cast by Taylors, Eayre and Smith in 2009. Additionally, for the 3rd time on this outing, they are in the key of B, and weigh 6cwt! Furthermore, there are 2 chiming bells, much older though. The lighter cast by the Wokingham Foundry in circa 1499, and the heavier by Henry I Knight in 1621. This ring was also an easy-going set. Quite like my lunch, nothing to complain about!
There we have it! An extremely fun-packed day of ringing, together with an excellent spot of grub. I must say, a massive thank you to the Kingston Bell Ringers for inviting me along – a day well spent!
Professional photographer James Bell visited the tower on practice night and took some lovely pictures in the tower. We sent some of the ones of our fine pealboards to ‘The Ringing World’, the bell ringers’ magazine.
This peal ten hand bells was the gift of S.W. Gandy Kingston Ringers 1847
We have blogged about lending a set of handbells to Piggott School’s music department.
Piggott School’s Christmas concert
Well, we asked for a photo of them for our inventory and we were sent the pic above which got us intrigued to find out about the generous donator. This is what we’ve uncovered on the internet …
S. W. Gandy, Samuel Whitelock Gandy was a famous writer of hymns as well as vicar of All Saints Kingston, 1817-1851.
We’ve found the following about him on the Internet:
Gandy, Samuel Whitelock. This writer (Vicar of Kingston-on-Thames with Richmond from Jan. 1817 to his death, Dec. 24, 1851) was the author of “What tho’ the Accuser roar” (Victory through Jesus), and “His be the Victor’s name” (Victory through Jesus), in the Plymouth Brethren Hymns for the Poor of the Flock, 1838, Nos. 43, 44. Some of his Sermons were published posthumously in 1859. Sedgwick says he published a Selection of Psalms & Hymns, but we have not seen this work (S. MSS.). –John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)
Samuel was the son of John and Margaret Gandy. He was a King’s Scholar at Eton in 1788, and an assistant there, 1800–03.
He was admitted as a scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, July 28, 1795 (BA 1800, MA 1803, fellow 1798–1817).
He served as minister at East Stonehouse (now part of Plymouth), and vicar at St. Budeaux Parish Church, Plymouth (1802–17), and at Kingston-upon-Thames, from January 1817 until his death.
Zac Hicks has made this video and wrote the tune to this song using lyrics from ‘His be the Victor’s name’:
Quarter peal of 1280 Cambridge Surprise Major for evensong. In memory of H John Parlett, 1948 Olympian, uncle of Kate Flavell (Kate’s paternal uncle), who died 6 March 2022, age 96.
Also a birthday compliment to Fraser. First on 8 too for Fraser. Well done Fraser on your first Major QP and Happy Birthday too!
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