Ring of bells

"Ring of bells" (or "peal of bells") is a term most often applied to a set of bells hung in the English style, typically for change ringing. Often hung in a church tower, such a set can include from three to sixteen bells (six- and eight-bell towers are particularly common), usually tuned to the notes of a diatonic scale (without intervening chromatic notes).

The distinctive feature of these English-style rings is that they are hung for "full-circle ringing": each bell is suspended from a (usually wooden) "headstock", which in turn is connected to the bellframe by bearings, allowing the bell to swing freely through just over 360 degrees; the headstock is fitted with a wooden wheel around which a rope is wrapped.

Each time it sounds, a bell's motion begins in the "upside-down" position, with the mouth upwards. As the ringer pulls the rope the bell swings down and then back up again on the other side, describing slightly more than a 360-degree circle. During the swing, the clapper inside the bell will have struck the "soundbow", making the bell resonate once. Each pull reverses the direction of the bell's motion; as the bell swings back and forth, the strokes are called "handstroke" and "backstroke" by turns. After the "handstroke" a portion of the bell-rope is wrapped around almost the entirety of the wheel and the ringer's arms are above his or her head holding the rope's "tail end"; after the "backstroke" most of the rope is again free and the ringer is comfortably gripping the rope some way up, usually along a soft woolen thickening called a "sally".

The bells are usually arranged in an upper room called a bell loft in such a way that their ropes fall into the room below, called the "ringing chamber", in a circle. Clockwise circles are most common, but anticlockwise ones are far from unheard-of. Unlike the norm among most musicians, the bells are numbered downwards, progressing from the "treble" (the lightest and highest-sounding bell), to the "2", the "3", and so forth down to the heaviest and deepest-sounding bell, the "tenor".

Change ringing bells are often cast with inscriptions on their sides. Often these are as simple as the name the founder who cast the bell, or perhaps that of its donor. Sometimes, however, bells are named, or bear short mottos. At Amersham (in Buckinghamshire) the tenor proclaims "Unto the Church, I do You call, Death to the grave will summon all." Perhaps because they are tolled at funerals, tenors often bear this sort of serious motto; those of trebles are often more light-hearted. The one at Penn, Buckinghamshire, for example, reads "I as trebell doe begin"; that at Northenden (Lancashire), " Here goes, my brave boys."

A key resource is "Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers", which aims to list most towers worldwide with bells hung for full-circle ringing. In April 2007 that guide lists 5,750 ringable rings of bells in England, 181 in Wales, and 65 elsewhere in the British Isles, as well as a further 123 towers worldwide with bells hung for full-circle ringing, mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. [cite web
url = http://www.cccbr.org.uk/dove/dove.php
title = Dove's Guide for Church bell Ringers
accessdate = 2007-04-30
last = Dove
first = Ron
authorlink =
coauthors = Baldwin, Sid
date = 2007-04-29
format =
work = Central Council of Church Bell Ringers website
publisher = Central Council of Church Bell Ringers]

Bell ringing was (and still is) very common in England, and there are many pubs around the country called "The Ring of Bells".

History

Before the 18th century, English churches used to have only three or four bells. Of the few with six bells in the 17th century, those of the Cathedral and St Swithun's Church in Worcester, St Peter's Church at Martley with the oldest set cast as a ring, and monastic churches at Evesham, Malvern, and Pershore, still remain. Those of about half a dozen other churches are cracked, replaced, or gone. _{[ [http://www.martley.org.uk/church/bellsone.htm St.Peter's Church, Martley] ]} 18th century the only two rings of twelve bells in England were at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London, and York Minster. Rings of six were common, rings of eight being less so, and rings of ten rare. The first ring of ten bells was installed at New College, Oxford.

Notes

ources and external links

* [http://www.cccbr.org.uk/prc/pubs/bellsInYourCare.php "Bells in Your Care"] — The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers
* [http://www.nagcr.org/pamphlet.html "What Is Change Ringing?] — North American Guild of Change Ringers
* [http://www.stbrides.com/news/archives/2006/02/why_a_ring_of_bells_is_a_tragi.html "Why a ring of bells is a tragic lost treasure of St Bride's"] — St Bride's, Fleet Street, news