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October 06, 2005

The Bells, the bells!

The Abbey is blessed with having a "heavy" "ring" of bells in it's tower, thirteen are hung for ringing as a peel, another four, caste in the 1680's used for the clock and a smaller bell, caste in 1690, used as the "Sanctus" Bell. The Bell Ringers ring every Sunday, practice every Thursday and ring for other state and festival occassions as well.

6big.jpg
Six of the bigger bells "set" for ringing in their Bell Frame in Tewkesbury's famous tower.

The present thirteen bells used in the peel, are all relatively new, twelve having been recast in 1962 from original bells from the tower which dated from the 18th and 19th Centuries. The thirteenth, a "Flat 6th" was added in 1991 to provide a slightly "lighter" toned Octave. As is the tradition, when a bell is recast the original metal is re-used with some new metal added. Each bell is named and each is mounted in a swinging frame which is in turn mounted in the Ringing Frame seen in the photograph. A "stay" prevents the bell from swinging through the "set" position, and holds it in balance until the ringer tugs the bell rope and releases it to swing through a 360 degree arc to it's reset position.

The keen observer will have noted something interesting in the picture - each bell is mounted to swing in a different direction to it's neighbour. This is to ensure that the momentum of the bells, transmitted through the Bell Frame, is not transferred to the tower in a motion that could cause the tower to sway in harmony with the movement of the bells.

There is something quintessentially English about the sound of the bells peeling - they do not play tunes - and it is probably not surprising that there are very few "rings" of bells hung in this way outside of the UK. From a health and safety perspective, there is another little point to remember about bell ringing - the ringers are never in the same space as the bells. The ringing chamber is always at least one, if not two floors below the bells and the sound is muffled. Inside the Belfry itself, the sound is loud enough to cause permanent damage to the ears and the bells in St Paul's Cathedral in London are said to have killed eight men in their history by the noise alone.

Even so, it is one of the traditions of the English Church which I hope will continue, it is, after all, a part of the culture we all enjoy.

Posted by The Gray Monk at October 6, 2005 05:38 PM

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