OldWindsor Bell Ringers Tour of Kent 2008

Many thanks to Sylvia for organizing another great day out.

St Stephen's, Lympne

The first tower was at Lympne, where we found a wonderful peal of six bells. A steep spiral staircase guided you up and into a warm and homely ringing chamber. It was a tiring climb but well worth it.

St Nicholas, Newchurch

It seemed the church had planned an open day, as we arrived we were welcomed by a large number of parishioners who were enjoying Tee and cakes. Several watched with their children as we plain hunted on a ring of Six bells.

The bells were a tad lumpy but the fact the ringing chamber was on ground level and open for all to see, made it a wonderful experience.

We enjoyed lunch next to the Dungeness light house and Steam railway.

Paul decided he had to check out the view from the old lighthouse and proceed to climb the 296 odd steeps to the top. Being 38! old age took over and his knee gave way during the steep decline. He was soon self diagnosed with 'lighthouse knee', but still managed to beat me at golf the next day!!! (I had a buggy. PK)

All Saints, Lydd

A beautiful church with a hard clime up a stone spiral staircase to the ringing chamber. As with St Stephens we again found a warm and well equipped chamber.

The bells themselves, a peal of eight were heavy, but wonderful to ring. You had no worries hearing the chime as the sound bellowed through there own personnel speaker, the stone staircase.

St Augustine, Brooklands

The famous Brookland tower, A ring of six light bells hung in a WOODEN steeple which is itself detached from the main parish church.

The tower is built of wood taken from shipwrecks from along the coast. The six bells were surprisingly easy going and every one enjoyed ringing them. It was however slightly nerving as you realized the whole tower vibrated along with the spire that seemed to sway some 4 - 6 inches.

A wonderful tower. Go see it, its worth it.

Website tower of the day

 

Old Windsor bell ringers world Tour 2005,

Well tour of Surrey, but it's a start!!!

Many thanks to John & Malcolm for the content and pics

Cold gray morning.   Many were already in the church yard at 9:25 when I arrived to find that I had forgotten the key, so a quick dash back home to get it.  So we got in to the tower and up the short winding stair case.   I sprang to the #4 to ring it up and broke the first rule of ringing up - check that it is down!  I'd forgotten that we left it up as we do in Bagshot with all of the other bells after practice on Thursday night.
Not a good start, especially in front of visitors! (maybe i should edit that out?. PK)
Anyhow, we had several rings, eventually getting all 8 going as more people  arrived and they sounded good but felt lumpy to most except yours truly. The rope on 4 was starting to part company at a splice so Malcolm had an impromptu gray hair extensions as the pieces of detached rope fell through the roof boss.

our next challenge.  At least getting to it!  From Bagshot, some went by the A-30 route while others went the Bracknell route.  As the sun broke through most of us broke through some 'Road Closed' signs. Only Gill paid attention to the signs so was a little late joining us.  Friendly welcome
The ringing 'room' was a very neat area at the back of the church within sight of the congregation.  The Church has a lovely smell of Maple Syrup.  High up on the wall opposite the ringing area was beam with an inscription in Latin from about 1603 which we struggled to translate.

The bells were not as 'flighty' as they had been described to me by some experts the previous evening and we managed some call changes. Plain and had a go at some Grandsire when Gill arrived.  We left the bells up for a wedding later that day

With detailed directions given at Sandhurst, we all arrived in caravan at Finchampstead.  Despite  a small diversion for some of us caused by Kevin's Sat Knave system, we let ourselves in and except for Lorraine,  made the long climb up a winding, rickety looking wooden staircase to arrive in the large ringing room.   Ringing up was noisy and  interesting in that when the bells were almost up and all of the  very new fat sallies went through the ceiling bosses at about the same time, the bells  sounded muffled. Very strange affect and we initially thought that something was going wrong with the bells.  We rang a combination of call changes and Plain Hunting with a few interludes to let Peter to do some single bell ringing and let Kevin and James hone their skills on getting a loop of rope on to a coat hook.  Dan and Zoe took the chance to do some canoodling sitting underneath the tower hand bells.

Finishing ringing, we descended to find the church filling up with people arriving for a baptism at 12:45.  The congregation thought that the ringing was being done for them. They and the lady vicar thought it sounded wonderful so the local band standard must be about the same as us!

The morning went quickly and we next headed off for a welcome lunch at the Beefeater in Finchampstead.  With 11 of us seated at two end to end tables we had a good laugh to go with the plentiful, excellent food.  During lunch, Dan accepted his future status as Tower Captain.  In life, some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them!

“Take the road behind the Church and go straight ahead - you can't miss it" were the last words we heard Dan shout as we headed for our cars to Easthampstead.   Fortunately, James and I, heading off first, missed the turning at St James'.  We followed the signs to the Crematorium at Easthampstead until we were on the small area covered by the map James had printed from the Internet...

We were warmly welcomed by Stan Scott, President of the 43-er Association.  A ringer for about 63 years, Stan is something of a legend in Bell Ringing though we didn't know it at the time. 

After negotiating the multiple roundabouts, light industrial estates which make up most of new towns like Bracknell, the others arrived to bells already up for weddings that day.  We got to ringing straight away and as Stan stayed and rang with us we did the most advanced ringing of the day. Plain hunting on 8 and on the 4 front/3 back combination we do at OW.  I lost control of the # 6 a couple of times for some reason, which I'll blame on the bells - of course!  This tower has 16-17 ringers for Thursday night practice! They tend to be ex-college ringers in their first jobs in the local IT industry. Fantastic!  A very neat and tidy belfry had good access via a cord operated ceiling door and 4 telephone transmitters.  These are a nice little earner of £11,000 per year!

 

The way to Warfield was easy but James and I had a real struggle finding the church despite being 'talked in' by Kevin.  We also had a map which would have been really useful once we were within sight of the church.   We toured the neighbourhood in bright afternoon sunshine and having taken the last possible exit at a cross roads interrupted two hand-in-hand dog walkers to ask the way. All 10 Bells at St Michael the Archangel (13 Cwt ring of 10 in F) were up when we arrived at the top of a long anti-clockwise stone staircase.  With the help of Simon, the young taciturn local ringer who let us in, and Kevin ringing 2 bells we managed to ring all 10.  Rounds, call changes and some plain hunting on 9 during which I lost control on the 8.  Rather than lack of skill, I put this down to having rung at 9 towers in 3 days.  I have to admit I was tired!  Young Peter, having done some single bell and assisted rounds, wound the bells ropes up at the end of our visit using a substantial and lockable winding gear to raise a very substantial 8 hook oak ball.

Back in to our cars and off to Sylvia's for very welcome tea.  We all were tired and very thankful that we did 5 towers in the day instead of the initially intended 6.   I hope everyone slept as well as James and I did that night!

The end
Back to Sylvia’s for a very welcome cup of tea (and cake).

Well done Sylvia thanks very much.