About Ringing

There are three ways in which tower bells are sounded: ‘chiming’, ‘swing chiming’, and ‘full circle ringing’.

Chiming

The bell remains stationery and is hit by a moving hammer. This may be done automatically (e.g. by a clock mechanism), by pulling a rope or using a keyboard known as a ‘clavier’. Five of the bells at St. Peter’s bells are equipped with chiming hammers which are used by the clock to strike the hours and quarters.

Swing chiming

The bell is swung through an arc until a clapper hanging inside the bell strikes the side. This is usually done by pulling a rope which is attached to a lever or wheel on the side of the bell.

Other than for very small bells, swing chiming takes a lot of effort (very large bells may be swung using motors). It is also difficult to control the speed of bells when rung in this way. While the bells at St. Peter’s can be swing chimed, this is not how they are usually sounded.

Full circle ringing

This is how the bells at St. Peter’s are usually rung. Despite being quite heavy (they will typically have a weight between that of a motorbike and a small car) full circle ringing allows bells to be controlled using a relatively small amount of effort. It uses technique and skill, not brute force, much of the work being done by the weight of the bell itself. Good ringers adapt to the feel and behaviour of a bell and respond to its natural rhythm.

Initially the bell is balanced mouth upwards. To ring the a bell, the ringer will first perform what is known as the ‘handstroke’:

1. The ringer pulls the rope a short distance using the wool hand grip (the ‘sally’) and then releases it.

2. The rope is attached to a wheel on the side of the bell, and as the bell turns, the rope is wound onto the wheel. This results in the rope being lifted up by several feet.

3. The ringer holds on to the end of the rope (the ‘tail-end’) and uses this to stop the bell just as it reaches the ‘mouth up’ position again.

4. The bell can then be kept in this position, with the ringer using the rope to hold it on the balance point.

Once the handstroke is completed, it is followed by the ‘backstroke’:

1. The tail end of the rope is pulled back down, causing the bell to turn in the opposite direction.

2. The rope descends as it is unwound from the wheel.

3. As the rope starts to wind back on to the wheel, the ringer catches the sally.

4. The ringer uses the rope to stop the bell as it reaches the ‘mouth up’ position and hold it on the balance again.

At both handstroke and backstroke, the clapper hanging inside the bell strikes it shortly before it reaches the top of the swing.

The handstroke and backstroke are repeated until the end of the ringing. They allow precise control of the timing, as a ringer can hold the bell on the balance point for as long as required, or can stop the bell early, before it reaches the top of its swing.

A bell can be left in the ‘mouth up’ position between pieces of ringing by being ‘set’. In order to do this, the ringer allows the bell to be held in place by a mechanism known as a ‘stay’ and ‘slider’.

Each piece of ringing starts with the bells being rung in order from the highest-pitched (the ‘treble’) to the lowest (the ‘tenor’). This is called ‘rounds’.

Once all of the bells have rung, the sequence is repeated. On six bells, this would be written in a series of rows as follows:

123456
123456
123456
123456

The order of the bells can then be varied by ringing ‘changes’. Each bell still rings once in each row, but the bells are in a different order in each one. No bell rings more than once in a row. These are examples of valid rows on six bells:

213456
214365
654321

These are not valid rows:

1234356 Bell number 3 rang twice.

21436 Bell number 5 did not ring.

A ‘change’ is the movement from one row to the next. Bells never move more than one place between successive rows.

This is a valid change:

123456
214365

This is not a valid change:

123456 Bell number 6 moves from the sixth place in the row
126345 to the third place in the following row.

How many rows are possible?

On two bells this is easy to work out - there are two possibilities:

12
21

If a third bell is added, to the existing two, then there are three places that it could ring in each of the two rows:

Before the other bells:

312
321

Between the other bells:

132
231

After the other bells:

123
213

This gives 6 possibilities, i.e. 2 x 3. This pattern then continues as more bells are included:

• 3 bells: 2 x 3 = 6 rows

• 4 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 = 24 rows

• 5 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 = 120 rows

• 6 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 = 720 rows

• 7 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 = 5,040 rows

• 8 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 = 40,320 rows

• 9 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 = 362,880 rows

• 10 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 = 3,628,800 rows

• 11 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 x 11 = 39,916,800 rows

• 12 bells: 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 x 11 x 12 = 479,001,600 rows

Call changes

This is one of the two ways of ringing changes. The bells ring rounds until the ‘conductor’ gives an instruction to cross over an adjacent pair of bells. The new row is rung until the next instruction. This continues until the bells come back into rounds.

There are different techniques for doing this. For example, to change between these two rows:

542136
542316

a conductor could call one of the following:

• “Fourths and fifths place change”. This tells the ringers who are striking in the fourth and fifth position in the row to switch places.

• “One and three change”. This tells the ringers of bell number one and bell number three to switch places in the row. The order in which the conductor names the bells is not important: “Three and one change” wold have the same effect.

• “One to three”. This tells the ringer of bell number one to move a place back in the row and ring after bell number three. Some conductors will say “One over three”, “One follow three” or “One after three” instead.

• “Three to two”. This tells the ringer of bell number three to move one place forward in the row and ring after bell number two. Once again, some conductors will use a slight variation of this wording.

A conductor usually uses only one of these techniques in any piece of ringing.

Method ringing

This is the other way of ringing changes. The bells ring in rounds until the conductor issues an instruction to start. After this, the order of the bells changes after each row. Each bell follows a predefined path as it moves to different positions in the row, never moving more than one place at a time. This continues (ideally without the same row being repeated) until the bells come back into rounds.

There are vast numbers of possible methods, and part of the attraction of ringing is learning new ones. A simple method (and the basis of all method ringing) is ‘Plain Hunt’. This is plain hunt on four bells:

1234
2143
2413
4231
4321
3412
3142
1324
1234

Notice how bell number one moves from being the first bell to ring to being the second, then the third, then the fourth. It then reverses this process until it is in the first positon again. The other bells follow a similar path, but starting in a different position.

Another simple method is ‘Plain Bob’. This is Plain Bob on four bells:

1234
2143
2413
4231
4321
3412
3142
1324
1342

This is the same as plain hunt, except for the last row. Bell number one still follows the same path as it did in the previous example, but the other three do not. As this has not come into rounds the ringing will continue. It follows the same pattern, but bell number 3 will now follow the path previously followed by bell number 2, bell number 4 will now follow the path previously followed by bell number 3, and bell number 2 will now follow the path previously followed by bell number 4. If the pattern is followed three times, the bells will come back into rounds, producing all 24 rows possible on four bells:

1234
2143 3124 4132
2413 3214 4312
4231 2341 3421
4321 2431 3241
3412 4213 2314
3142 4123 2134
1324 1432 1243
1342 1423 1234

Most methods do not produce all of the possible rows. The conductor can give additional instructions that move some of the bells to different places on the path in order to achieve this, or to produce pieces of varying lengths.

How is it done?

In change ringing the bells continually sound in different orders according to the rules of a method. Ringers do not have the equivalent of sheet music to read from, even in performances lasting several hours, so everything is done from memory.

Methods are learned in verbal or diagrammatic form. Ringers use that to determine their bell's place in each row, and then execute the physical actions to move it there. Timing is controlled by swinging the bell slightly higher or lower. Good ringers achieve a precision of a few hundredths of a second.

In addition to making adjustments to their speed based on the overall rhythm, most ringers use ‘ropesight’ to see how the other bells are fitting around them.

One of the ringers will act as the ‘conductor’. Conductors learn a ‘composition’ - a list of points during the ringing at which to make the ‘calls’ instructing some of the ringers to make a temporary adjustment to the path that their bells are following. The conductor also has to check the ringing to ensure that no ringers have accidentally allowed the path of their bell to swap with another.

If you want some more information on ringing, look at this page by the North American Guild of Change Ringers, or look at some of the videos on this page.

If you think that you might like to learn how to ring, go to this page.