The Bells of St. Mary’s

On Palm Sunday 2022, Mike Riddiford recorded the Bell Ringing before the Service and later recorded a fascinating interview with Ian Vaughan from the St. Mary’s Bell Ringers in the Churchyard. The recording starts with the sound from the inside Ringing Room, where you will hear Ian calling the bells and then later the Tower Captain Hamish leading the bell ringers.

The St. Mary de Haura Bellringers are keen to encourage new ringers to join them. Bell Ringing uses number notation, so it is not necessary to have any musical knowledge, although a sense of rhythm and a good memory can be helpful. Once the basics have been mastered, ringing becomes a group activity with the opportunity of visiting other towers and making new friends. 

http://www.stmarydehaura.org.uk/church-life/bellringers/

18 minutes duration, interview at 2 mins, with three sequences of the bells.

Listen out for the Conductor’s calls – “Stand”, which means hold the Bells up, inverted. “Trebles gone” – is the bell dropping from inverted and the start of the ringing – when the Treble Bell (number 1)  is dropped first and the other ringers follow in sequence. The order the bells are rung in is changed when the Conductor calls (for example) 3 to 4, 5 to 3. So bell 3 moves to 4 and 5 moves to 3 in the sequence.

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