Bells and Bellringing

In many churches of the English-speaking countries, a unique style of bellringing has been practised for centuries…

[English-Style Bells] [Bell Ropes] [Change Ringing] [Home]

English-Style Bells

Unlike the bells of mainland Europe, which generally swing through a small arc and chime haphazardly, English-style bells are designed to turn through a full circle, reaching the upright position at the end of each swing. This requires skill to get the pull just right, but gives the ringers precise control over the timing and is critical for change ringing.

The bell at the top of the page (right) is the heaviest bell at Shoreditch in London, weighing 1288kg and cast by Taylor’s of Loughborough, the same foundry that cast the bells of St. David’s Cathedral. The ringer is Nathaniel, who was learning to ring at Holy Trinity Church, Hobart, in 2001. He would have found this bell a bit of a handful if he had really tried to ring it!

Church bells are made of bronze and vary in size to give different notes. The original eight bells of St. David’s Cathedral, pictured here before being augmented in 2005, range in size from 200kg up to 750kg (¾ tonne). The heaviest English-style bell of all is at Liverpool Cathedral, England, and weighs over four tonnes.

This style of bells and bellringing developed in England in the 1600s and remains unique to English-speaking countries (although a similar system arose independently in a small region of Italy). The vast majority of towers with such bells are in England, attached to Church of England churches. There are also a small number of towers associated with other churches and secular buildings such as town halls. There are even one or two installations in the attics and garages of seriously enthusiastic bellringers!


This diagram shows the numbers of towers containing five or more bells
in all the countries where change ringing is practised.

Bell Ropes

Bell ropes are specialist items made by a small number of UK rope manufacturers. They feature a colourful hand-grip called a “sally” made of wool inserted between the fibres of the rope.

The bottom section of a bell rope, from the sally down, is made of natural fibre (flax or hemp) which handles well. The long section from above the sally up to the bell is made of terylene in most modern ropes because it is durable and non-stretchy.

The rope on the right has been tied in a special “bellringers’ knot”. It keeps the end of the rope clear of the floor but will untie itself (rather than become a noose) if pulled accidentally or handled by an untrained person.

Church bells can cause serious injury. Ropes like these are for bellringers only!

Change Ringing

[Rounds] [Changes] [Methods] [Special Performances]

The centuries-old art of change ringing involves accurate ringing of bells to a set pattern, requiring bells that swing full-circle in the English style. It produces a complex and varied sound, bringing out the best in the bells. Change ringing is popular throughout the UK and has spread to other English-speaking countries; but it has never gained a foothold in mainland Europe.

Swinging bells cannot be used for ordinary music because they are heavy and take time to swing around. Imagine how slow the first line of Jingle Bells would be at two seconds per note!

Rounds

The simplest type of ringing that we do is called “rounds”. This involves ringing the bells one after another in a fairly rapid downwards scale. Rather than using musical notation, we number all the bells starting with the smallest as number one. Rounds on six bells is written as “123456”. We usually carry on for several swings of the bells. Here are a few seconds of rounds:
Although rounds is easy and sounds pleasant, it quickly becomes boring.

Changes

In change ringing, the bells sound in a different order every time they swing, sometimes following quite complicated patterns as they shift around one another. Each different order of the bells is called a “change”, giving rise to the common expression “ringing the changes”.

Some especially musical changes have names. The change “15263748” is called Tittums, for example, because it sounds like “ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum”!

Change ringing always starts and finishes with rounds, but in between there is endless scope for varying the order in which the bells are rung. The only rule is that the order must change gradually—bells must move only one place at a time (they are too big and heavy for more than that).

Methods

Different patterns of changes are called methods and have names like “Grandsire” and “Double Oxford”. The simplest method of all is called “Plain Hunt”, shown here on six bells:

The line through bell number two shows how it moves around from change to change. Following a diagonal path like this is called “hunting”. Can you see that all the bells are hunting? To ring Plain Hunt we have to memorise this line (not the numbers!). We also have to know how to make our bells follow the line, requiring a fine touch rather than great strength.

Plain hunt on six bells contains just twelve changes and takes less than thirty seconds to complete. Other methods are more complex and last longer before returning to rounds. Here is the start of “London Surprise” on six bells. It returns to rounds after 120 changes, taking about four minutes to complete:

Although this method, like many others, finishes after 120 changes, there are more changes available (720 in all on six bells). Special rules exist for all methods to extend them beyond their normal length so that longer periods of ringing are possible without the need to repeat changes. On more than six bells, ringing can last for hours without ever repeating a change!

Special Performances

When we are asked to ring bells for special occasions we like to test our skills by ringing for a long period, usually around 45 minutes but sometimes up to three hours without a break. This takes a lot of concentration and can be physically tiring too.

As always, we start and finish with rounds, avoiding any repeats in between. Ringing all 720 changes on six bells takes about 25 minutes. We sometimes ring all the changes on seven bells, taking around three hours. The total on eight bells has been rung on church bells only once; it took over 16 hours non-stop and is in the Guinness Book of Records.

This table shows how many changes there are on different numbers of bells, and the approximate amount of time needed to ring them:

Number of Bells Number of Changes Time Needed to Ring all the Changes
3 6 10 seconds
4 24 40 seconds
5 120 4 minutes
6 720 25 minutes
7 5,040 3 hours
8 40,320 1 day
9 362,880 9 days
10 3,628,800 3 months
11 39,916,800 3 years
12 479,001,600 36 years
16 20,922,789,888,000 1½ million years

The seven-bell total of 5040 changes in three hours is a real challenge and has become the traditional length of ringing (on any number of bells) for very special occasions. Ringing for this long is called a “peal”. The most recent peal in Hobart was in March 2004 at St. David's. We have full details of all the peals that have ever been rung in Tasmania. The total stands at 39 (at the end of 2004).

Thirty-nine peals is not very many, however. Some bellringers in the UK ring more than a hundred per year. A few individuals have rung over four thousand during their lifetime!
© The Hobart Bellringers, 2002 Home