Bell Tower
Essential information
- Bells, 8 bells, tenor weight 14-0-10 (716kg), full details here
- Sunday ringing 9.00 for 9.30 service
- Practice night Monday from 7.30, refreshments afterwards (usually The Horns)
- Ringing master Kevin Fox
- New ringers always required to ensure bells continue to be heard across the village of Crondall
Crondall bells - a brief history
Chiming bells (swinging them through a short arc using a rope and a lever) goes well back into the Middle Ages, but it was not until the seventeenth century that ringers developed the full wheel which allowed enough control for orderly ringing. In 1668 Fabian Stedman published Tintinnalogia - or the Art of Change Ringing, containing all the available information on systematic ringing. The theory of change ringing set forth by Stedman has been refined in later years but remains essentially unchanged today.
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Some key dates for the Crondall bells:
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Crondall has 8 bells for change ringing, tenor (heaviest bell) weighs 14-0-10 (nearly ¾ ton).
The Millenium project
Up to 2000 Crondall had 6 bells hung in the very old (older than the tower) wooden frame, with the bells hung ant-clockwise (meaning the order of the ropes in the ringing room was the opposite way round to the majority of other towers). The frame required constant attention, the bells were difficult to ring, and there was the real likelihood that in the near future they could become unsafe preventing further ringing.
The bells were augmented, restored and rehung by Whites of Appleton in the year 2000, made possible by donations and support from:
- The Guildford Diocesan Guild of Bellringers
- The Barron Bell Trust
- BOC
- The Sharpe Trust
- Many individuals in Crondall, Ewshot and surrounding area
The new bells were cast by Whitechapel, London. The treble is inscribed, "This bell was cast to commemorate the Chaundler family who have served the church and village for more than four centuries". The second is inscribed, "The people of Crondall gave this bell to commemorate the year 2000". In addition, separate clock bell and bidding bell were acquired, hung in the original wooden frame.
The project and most of the work was carried out voluntarily by the Crondall bellringers, assisted by others in the local community, under the leadership of Michael Kelly. Over 2000 hours of voluntary effort was put in by the volunteers.
Bellringing at Crondall
All Saints Church is fortunate to have a well-equipped bell tower with eight bells and a cheerful band of ringers. The bells can be heard every Sunday morning before the 9.30 service, and frequently ring for weddings and special occasions.
We practise on Monday evenings from 7.30pm, and all are welcome to come along to find out more about this ancient tradition.
Bellringing is a non-competitive team activity that is highly stimulating intellectually and mildly demanding physically, and makes a beautiful sound. It develops mental and physical skills in a context of communal effort. Many people ring as a contribution to church life.
We are an active group at all stages of learning the art of ringing, and most enjoy the regular socialising that occurs after practice night. We also arrange other activities such as outings to other towers, walks, meals, bowling and so on.
Handbells
Although handbells can be used for change ringing as with the tower bells, more often they are used for tune ringing. Each ringer usually has 2 bells and so the skill (and fun) is to ring at the right time, fitting in with the others to make up the music. There is no necessity to ring tower bells to be in the handbell team.
Change ringing
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Change ringing is more about mathematics and patterns rather than music. The aim of change ringing is that every time the bells sound a new order (permutation) is rung, so that every 'change' is different to all the previous ones. The way the order of the bells is changed is known as a 'method', and this leads to some very strange terms such as: hunt, dodge, blue-line, whole-pull, half-turn, places. Methods have names such as:
The number of bells used for changes also have strange names, such as minor (6), triples (7), major (8), caters (9), royal (10). This is added to the method name to give, for example: Plain Bob Minor, Cambridge Surprise Major, Stedman Triples. Of course at Crondall we only have 8 bells so cannot go beyond major.The maximum number of possible permutations on 6 bells is 720 (6x5x4x3x2x1), and takes about 25 minutes to ring. On 7 bells the number of permutations is 5040 and takes a little under 3 hours, and this length of ring is known as a peal. If we were to try to ring all the possible permutations on the 8 bells of Crondall it would take nearly 24 hours! |
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For more information contact Kevin Fox.
(Last update 24/12/11)