Brief History of our Bells
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Bell ringing has been practiced for over 400 years. Some towers initially only had one bell, as ours at haughton did, but as the wealth of the villages or towns grew, so did the number of bells.
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At Haughton our first bell is dated 1611, and was probably hung as a chiming bell only. This bell on it’s own would have been used to call the parishioners to church. In 1897 four new bells were added, and hung in a wooden frame for ‘full circle’ ringing. This would have made a set of 5 bells.
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These days the bells are hung in a modern steel 6 bell frame, with a treble added in 1998. The treble was aquired from a redunant church, Longford near Newport Shropshire.
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The old wooden frame remains suspended from the roof of the tower. On close inspection, the frame suggests there may have been other bells in the tower before the middle 4 were added in 1897. This evidence is backed by an ancient rhyme contained in a prayer book of a villagers records:
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“One was cracked, and made a bad sound,
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Which caused it laughed at the country round:
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The Rector and Parish did contrive,
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To cast these bells and make them five;
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The Rector’s Warden which was strange,
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Was much against this happy change.”
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Ringing in England
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In England we practice what is known as ‘full circle’ ringing. This means that a bell is mounted onto bearings with a wheel attached. It is normally swung 360 degrees, with the aid of a rope. Ringing a bell in this way allows us to have a set time in which the bell strikes, as there is an set time for the bell to swing around the full circle. We also have control of striking the bell later or earlier, by holding the bell on it’s ‘balance’, or if don’t pull as hard, the bell will swing less than 360 degrees making the bell strike sooner.
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This way of ringing is unique to Britain. We have over 5000 towers with bells hung in them for ‘full circle’ ringing. Africa, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and America are the only other countries, with a hand-full of towers between them with bells fitted in this way.
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