The Website for the St. Nicholas Hurst Bell Ringers
We rang for a wedding today. This was the first wedding that many of the newer band members had rung for. We had 8 ringers and rang rounds and call changes. Ringing were Graham, Sue, Owen, Keith, Duncan, Jeremy, Stephanie and Wendy.
The previous day, Stephanie, Duncan and Keith had visited the tower to ring the bells up.
Tonight we did some practice in the simulator whilst Graham worked with Louise on rope handling. Stephanie and Keith both practiced plain hunt on 5.
Afterwards Louise practiced rounds on the simulator, and Graham had a go at a 12 bell method.
It was a useful session and we ended with a debrief at The Castle.
We started the evening ringing up and then ringing rounds and call changes. We rang the second half of 60 on thirds.
During the evening we rang Whitfield, Cloister, and another training method invented by Graham which was named “Again” as in “Go again!”.
We then rang the back six down in peal.
Attending were Graham, Sue, Duncan, Louise, Stephanie, Jeremy, Keith and Simon.
We were a little low on numbers this week as various people were away or committed to other things. Initially it looked like there would only be 4 of us: Graham, Keith, Duncan and Sue. But Stephanie turned up just as we were about to start ringing as her commitment at Cantley Park had been cancelled due to bad weather.
We attempted to ring plain hunt on 4 with a cover, which didn’t go too well but improved as we went along. We then switched to ringing call changes on the 3, 4, 6, 7 & 8 bells. This particular choice of bells was chosen as it makes up a major pentatonic scale which sounds good in pretty much any combination.
We then rang down the front 3 in peal (sort of), followed by some rounds on the back 5, and an attempt to ring them down in peal.
Today the tower was visited by some of the attendees of the Bradfield Ringing Course. None of the local band were in attendance except to open up the tower for them, and to lock up afterwards. The local village Horticultural show was in full swing down the hill at the village halls, and several people commented on how lovely the bells sounded.
We had a busy evening starting with attempting to ring up in peal on 6 bells (as Rachel was available to ring up). We then practised call changes on 6, with some of “60 on 3rds”. We then did some plain rounds to give Louise some practice. After we attempted Cloister a few times interspersed with more rounds. We rang Whitefield and more rounds and then attempted to ring down in peal. Attending this evening were Graham, Vinni, Stephanie, Louise, Rachel, Duncan and Keith.
We started the session attempting to ring up in peal followed by call changes with Stephanie, Duncan, Keith and Wendy taking turns to lead the band.
In between each touch of changes, the band rang Whitefield with Stephanie, Keith, Duncan and Wendy taking turns on the treble to practice plain hunting.
Good turnout from the team this Sunday meant we were able to make very good use of a welcome visitor to ring all 8 bells for 11 o’clock service.
Jez joined us from Cambridgeshire, strengthening the band to enable us to give St Helens Doubles a spin, and to ring some respectable rounds and call-changes on the 8.
Duncan, Graham, Keith, Jeremy, Steph, Sue & Wendy.