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What is Church Bell Ringing?
Like most peals in Britain, the eight bells of Battle tower are hung for full-circle, change ringing. This type of bell ringing comes from an ancient English art based on mathematics.Each bell has a wheel with a rope and swings in just over a full circle, from the 'mouth up' position all the way around to the 'mouth up' position again. The bells are held in place in their upright position by 2 pieces of wood (the stay and slider), which are designed to break under excess force to avoid damaging the bell.
You may also know of Carillon towers, where bells are rung in a completely different way - bells hang mouth down and are struck with a hammer by pressing keys similar to those of a piano.
There is also chime-ringing, where the bells hang 'mouth down' and are swung just enough to get them to strike. This type of ringing means you can only strike the bell at a constant speed, whereas full-circle ringing allows you to stop or speed up after each strike.
The bells in the tower range in size from a few hundred pounds, to a few tonnes. This, accompanied by gravity, creates a huge amount of momentum, while the bell swings round over 360 degrees. As a result, the bells take approximately 2 seconds to rotate. Obviously, this means that traditional 'tunes' cannot be rung.
Ringers overcome this, by making each bell strike (aka ring) once, one after the other (known as a change), before each striking again - not necessarily in the same order. When this is done over and over, it is known as a method.
Bell Ringing does require great precision. Take for example, some 'slow' ringing, where 8 bells ring 24 changes in a minute. A little bit of thought says that's (24x8) 192 bells to ring in 60 seconds - which gives each bell a mere 0.32 seconds to strike in. Each bell has to be struck precisely, as 2 bells each with an error of one-sixth of a second can clash which, once you know what you're listening for, sounds terrible.
The bells are numbered, from the lightest (highest sounding note), 1, to the heaviest (lowest sounding note). When the bells first start ringing, it is in rounds. Rounds is the sequence of the lightest bell to the heaviest - on 8 bells, that is:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8In a method, bells are allowed to swap with an adjacent bell, in pairs - due to the precise timing. (Technical: This is because it is not feasible to ring first in the second change, if you rang last in the first... Come along if you want to learn more). For example:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
2 1 4 3 6 5 8 7... all 4 pairs of bells swapped (2 changes), or
2 1 4 3 6 5 8 7
2 4 1 3 6 8 5 7
2 4 3 1 8 6 5 7... 3 changes, different pairs swapping.
Lots of changes create what are known as methods, to which there are patterns. All methods return back to rounds at the end, and do not repeat any one change. A line is drawn through one bell, in order to make understanding and learning the method more easy. For example:
 | Plain Hunt on 5 |
Obviously, this has not covered every possible different change. The number of different changes available can be calculated by multiplying the number of bells by each number, down to 1. For example: on 7 bells, there are 5,040 (7x6x5x4x3x2x1) available changes, and on 5, 120. There are no methods which can cover all of these changes, so there are 'special' changes included at specific points. This allows for the same method to be rung again, but with the bells in a different order.
Keen bellringers (or mad ones) ring peals, which consist of 5,000 different changes or more and takes an average of 3 hours to ring (in one go). There are also 1/4 Peals, which are rung more often and consist of approximately 1,200 changes and takes 45-50 minutes.
Contrary to popular belief, ringing is not a particularly physical or intellectual hobby. There is also no need to be musical. The only maths involved, is the ability to count to the number of bells in your tower, and back again.
To begin with, things will seem slow, but once you can handle on your own, you're limited only by the ability of the towers you're prepared to travel to... Why not help them improve anyway??. A lot of ringers go to at least one practise per week, as well as ringing for Sunday services, weddings and special events.
Do come to one of our practices, to learn - or just to be shown how it all works.
Can you do it?? Probably. (But you will have to climb the stairs. Probably.)
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Battle Bell Ringers