Clockwise from front right: Surrey: 1 Kate Flavell, 2 Susan Gibbin, 3 Anne Rueff, 4 Fraser Storie, 5 Shirley McGill, 6 Oliver Thompson, 7 Noel Gibbin, 8 Paul Flavell, 9 Graeme Booth, 10 Phill Ridley
The Surrey Association were the hosts for this year’s Essex Trophy competition. We were very grateful to Ed and Val Muller for the use of Bletchingley bells their kind hospitality in laying on refreshments and Ploughman’s lunches, and for the use of the excellent Village Hall as the central meeting area.
Six teams entered to ring a full course of Yorkshire Surprise Royal, marked from the fourth lead end. Each team was given a 30 minute slot to practise and ring their test piece. Bletchingley bells are a pleasant ground floor 10, rehung in 1989 and augmented to 10 in 1991, and ideal for this competition.
The judge was Ian Roulstone from St Paul’s Cathedral, safely squirrelled away on the first floor of the church rooms next to the church. Ian commented on each team in turn and said the ringing had all been quite consistent and nice to listen to. There were very few method mistakes which is essential in a striking contest!
Ian presenting the magnificent Essex Trophy to Andrew Kelso, the Essex captain
The results were as follows: Place Team Peal speed Faults (out of 400 marks) 1 Essex 3hrs 09min 54 2 Surrey 3hrs 18min 71 3 Guildford 3hrs 20min 79 4 Kent 3hrs 20min 94 5 Sussex 3hrs 11min 108 6 Middlesex 3hrs 08min 155
Congratulations to this year’s winners Essex and thanks again to Bletchingley and Ian.
Essex will be hosting the 2023 competition on 9 September at St Mary’s Walthamstow.
Team photos
Clockwise from front right: Sussex: 1 Margaret Oram, 2 Simon Alford, 3 Ian Oram, 4 Sue Meyer, 5 Abi Fairhurst, 6 Stephen Beckingham, 7 Andrew Alford, 8 Edward Woodward, 9 David Smith, 10 Simon Meyer
Exactly 2 months ago tomorrow (at the time of writing), the Bell Ringers of All Saints, Kingston-upon-Thames had their annual excursion. 4 towers in total were rung at, in the counties of Surrey and Hampshire. Not only that, we had a scrumptious lunch halfway through at ‘The White Hart’ in Holybourne, with an attempt made for cream tea at the end of the day, but that was not quite as successful as it could have been!
St Mary, Frensham
Tower 1 was the light ring of 8 at Frensham. This was the only tower on the day which was in the county of Surrey, with the other 3 being in Hampshire. Not only that, this was also our heaviest ring on the day, with a 9cwt tenor in G.
These are a very mixed bag of bells. Until 1973, a ring of 6 by Taylor’s, Ellis I Knight, Mears & Stainbank, Robert Catlin, and an unidentified founder was present. Then, Whitechapel cast 2 trebles to make the ring of 8 we know today. In fact, they recently received a major overhaul by Taylor’s. This involved a rehang, retuning, restoration of clappers amongst other things, and the cleaning/replacement of bearings. As a result, producing a very enjoyable octave to ring on.
All Saints, Alton
Alton boasts 2 rings in the main part of the town, those being All Saints and St Lawrence. Our second tower was the former, which is in the South Western part of the town. It is located on the crossroads of Butts Road, Queens Road and the extremely fittingly named Tower Street. Diagonally opposite the church is Alton Fire Station, situated on a small raised mound which provided a great vantage point for filming the ringing.
This tower, much like the 3rd and 4th towers on the outing, has a delightful set of new bells. In this case, the ring of 6 here was installed by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 2006. They are also a light set of bells, being only 6cwt. Not only that, they are tuned to B. Making this quite a comparison to one of my home towers at Addington. One major difference between them though is that Addington sound very clear in the ringing chamber whereas Alton have much more resonating tones. It’s as if the bells have a striking tone of being muffled, but the volume of a normal bell, thus making these bells quite pleasing to listen to.
With 2 towers completed, we drove up the road to Holybourne – a suburb of Alton. This was the location of our aforementioned scrumptious lunch! My food was impossible to complain about: despite the quite large circumference of my Korean Spiced Chicken Burger (which no doubt resulted in some difficult and messy bites), the taste and texture was magnificent! Completed with chips and baked beans on the side, that was certainly one of the best pub meals I’ve ever had!
Now, on to the afternoon …
The Church of The Holy Road, Holybourne
Just metres away from the pub is Church Lane, the country lane that took us up the gentle incline to The Church of The Holy Road. This was our 3rd and penultimate tower of the day. We arrived around 30 minutes early, so we took the time so take the band photo in the churchyard. This also gave us an extra 10 minutes of ringing time as our tower-opener also arrived prematurely!
Like the previous tower, Holybourne have a full Whitechapel set of bells. Cast in 2009, they are again tuned the B and weigh 6cwt. In addition, there are 3 clock bells. 2 quarter chimes (in D and B) and the hour bell in A. These are much older, having been cast by Richard Phelps, Richard Eldridge and the Wokingham Foundry in 1600, 1728 and around 1440! For me, the ring of 8 here was very easy-going. They required little effort to keep up, and the bells I rang had no habit of suddenly dropping on you. I have to say, the rings around here are of a very commendable quality.
St Nicholas, Chawton
Following on from the outstanding 8 at Holybourne, we moved swiftly on to our 4th and final tower. Which was in the village of Chawton, similar to Holybourne, being in extremely close proximity to Alton.
Similar to Alton and Holybourne, Chawton has a complete set of bells. Not by Whitechapel though, this time they were cast by Taylors, Eayre and Smith in 2009. Additionally, for the 3rd time on this outing, they are in the key of B, and weigh 6cwt! Furthermore, there are 2 chiming bells, much older though. The lighter cast by the Wokingham Foundry in circa 1499, and the heavier by Henry I Knight in 1621. This ring was also an easy-going set. Quite like my lunch, nothing to complain about!
There we have it! An extremely fun-packed day of ringing, together with an excellent spot of grub. I must say, a massive thank you to the Kingston Bell Ringers for inviting me along – a day well spent!
Professional photographer James Bell visited the tower on practice night and took some lovely pictures in the tower. We sent some of the ones of our fine pealboards to ‘The Ringing World’, the bell ringers’ magazine.
This peal ten hand bells was the gift of S.W. Gandy Kingston Ringers 1847
We have blogged about lending a set of handbells to Piggott School’s music department.
Piggott School’s Christmas concert
Well, we asked for a photo of them for our inventory and we were sent the pic above which got us intrigued to find out about the generous donator. This is what we’ve uncovered on the internet …
S. W. Gandy, Samuel Whitelock Gandy was a famous writer of hymns as well as vicar of All Saints Kingston, 1817-1851.
We’ve found the following about him on the Internet:
Gandy, Samuel Whitelock. This writer (Vicar of Kingston-on-Thames with Richmond from Jan. 1817 to his death, Dec. 24, 1851) was the author of “What tho’ the Accuser roar” (Victory through Jesus), and “His be the Victor’s name” (Victory through Jesus), in the Plymouth Brethren Hymns for the Poor of the Flock, 1838, Nos. 43, 44. Some of his Sermons were published posthumously in 1859. Sedgwick says he published a Selection of Psalms & Hymns, but we have not seen this work (S. MSS.). –John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)
Samuel was the son of John and Margaret Gandy. He was a King’s Scholar at Eton in 1788, and an assistant there, 1800–03.
He was admitted as a scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, July 28, 1795 (BA 1800, MA 1803, fellow 1798–1817).
He served as minister at East Stonehouse (now part of Plymouth), and vicar at St. Budeaux Parish Church, Plymouth (1802–17), and at Kingston-upon-Thames, from January 1817 until his death.
Zac Hicks has made this video and wrote the tune to this song using lyrics from ‘His be the Victor’s name’:
Quarter peal of 1280 Cambridge Surprise Major for evensong. In memory of H John Parlett, 1948 Olympian, uncle of Kate Flavell (Kate’s paternal uncle), who died 6 March 2022, age 96.
Also a birthday compliment to Fraser. First on 8 too for Fraser. Well done Fraser on your first Major QP and Happy Birthday too!
Represented the Cambridge University Guild from 1954 – 1984, Honorary Member 1984 – 1990, represented the Hereford Diocesan Guild 1996 to 2002, and the Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association 2002 – 2008. Attended 43 meetings.
Served on the Admin Committee from 1969 – 1980, the Towers & Belfries Committee from 1960 – 1986 (chairman 1980 – 1986) and the Biographies Committee 1978 – 1984 & 1996 – 2008 (chairman 1999 – 2005)
We were sent an email from a previous Kingston tower captain, Martin Lazell (1980) with a link to a fabulous old photo album of Kingston on the Kingston Heritage Service Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingstonmuseum/with/32102653026/
There are some fab photos on there, but two caught our eye, and we’ve been able to identify the ringers too. Read on!
Here’s our detective work, thanks to Inspector Paul Flavell (our current tower captain), Inspector Alan Bagworth and Inspector Michael Uphill!
The photo was taken in 1953 and according to the captain’s board (see below), the tower captain was Frank Hawthorne.
Pictured: Brian Threlfall, Bill Morris and Frank Hawthorne.
This is the old anticlockwise 10 so the boxes for 9 and 10 are the other way round!
The old tenor was 27cwt – that’s a huge box Bill Morris is standing on!
Curious to see all the existing pealboards but quite clearly in different places to where they are now. I shall take a copy of this picture and try to identify all the pealboards in the photo. Not sure which wall we’re looking at but we think it must be the (west) wall behind our current bells 3,4,5,6. The ladder goes up into the same place as the existing trap door.
I wonder what happened to the clock?
The tank tops and waistcoats are typical of ringers of that period! I think we should reinstate them as our uniform – much smarter than our polo shirt, although I doubt they are very comfortable to ring in 😂
Pictured: Brian Threlfall and Frank Hawthorne muffling the tenor.
Putting muffles on whilst the bells are up – this is very dangerous and we stopped doing it several years ago we hasten to add! Obviously health and safety standards have changed quite a lot over the years.
The wires in the background were probably how the carillon was originally connected to the hammers.
This was the original oak bell frame.
There is strong ‘chicken wire’ netting over the louvres to stop birds coming in.
There is a low ceiling over the bells which isn’t there now.
If you spot any pictures of All Saints Church or Kingston bell ringers on your travels and internet searches, do send them on to us as we’d love to see them. And I’ve just gone down a rabbit hole searching the named ringers in the photos. More to come! And if you have any stories about these particular ringers or you’re related to them, do get in touch. We’d love to hear your stories.
Quarter peal dates for Evensong (so no open ringing for service) – all subject to change. Please contact the tower for more info.
9 January
13 February
13 March
10 April
8 May
12 June
10 July
14 August
11 September
9 October
13 November
11 December
Other key dates
18-20 February – The Surrey Association Peal weekend is traditionally held in the middle of February each year to mark the anniversary of the first peal for the Association on 18th February 1881.
2 March – Ash Wednesday – No practice
2-6 June – Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Weekend. The 70th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne falls on February 6, 2022 but the celebrations are to be held in June.
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