Haughton Bell Ringers & Village News: January 2023

3 more peals to view

I was lucky enough to be asked to ring in a couple of peal in Lancashire this week. The first was on Friday 27th January and was at Garstang, Lancashire. St Helen, Churchtown. Details are available from here https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1591232

The second peal was quite special as it was at a tower which has been 'hard' to get for many years. Kevin had been trying since 1971 to peal these bells and finally we managed it. The tower was St. Peter's in Lytham St. Anne details of the peal are here: https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1591228

I wasn't involved in 3rd peal I'm going to give you the link for, but it did stand out at me. It was a peal rung by some local ringers at Hoar Cross. The tenor weighs 28cwt which is 1.4 tonnes, that is nearly 5 times the weigh of our tenor at Haughton. The treble at 8cwt is heavier than our tenor and so to ring a peal of 5040 is going to take skill and effort, but as you can see they've added an extra 720 changes on to the peal. The peal took 4 hrs and 16 minutes and so took an extra hour and half longer than a peal on our bells. The peal can be viewed here: https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1591838

Haughton Bell Ringers practice every Tuesday evening from 8pm until 9pm. We welcome new ringers, and anyone who would like to visit us to find out more. Please feel free to share this post by text, email or social media

Recruiting for the King's Coronation

The King;s Coronation still seems in the distant future, but it's just a little over 3 months away. It takes several weeks to learn to handle a bell and to ring with the rest of the team, but with a little dedication we will teach you and get you ringing in time for the King's coronation.

So come along to learn to ring and make history and ring for the King.

Quarter Peal Success

Our quarter peal attempt was successful. We rang 360 Kennington, 360 April Day and 560 Plain bob, making a total of 1260 changes. The ringers were:

1. Karen Powell

2. Trevor Lock (C)

3. Jennifer Beech

4. Margaret Simpson

5. Chris Adams

6. Trevor Stacey

It is such a good exercise to ring a quarter peal as the ringers have 45 minutes of non-stop ringing, giving them practice at controlling their bell, maintaining a rhythm and keeping their concentration.

We would like to thank Chris, Jenny and Margaret for joining us to ring the quarter.

The quarter was recorded on Bell Board use this link: https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1592024 and was also rung to wish Kevin M. Price a Happy Birthday.

Quarter Peal Attempt 9am Monday 30th January

There will be a quarter peal attempt tomorrow morning (Monday 30th January) at 9pm on our bells at Haughton. Another post will be made with full details if successful.

North Staffs Bell Ringers Clapper Trapping Winter 2022

Here is a Link to the latest edition of the North Staffs ClapperTrapping

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1szeiGHeWW8fv90vQ9LVQZI6Yj6GevJjA/view?usp=sharing

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Stafford Bell Project and Blessing Service

Stafford's augmentation is well underway with the bells eventually returning on 2nd January. The Bishop of Stafford The Venerable Matthew Parker conducted the service and blessed the bells on Wednesday 4th January. The service was well attended with parishioners and ringers from all over the county.

Some photos and a video of the service.

The Restoration was well underway in the days after the service, here's a few pictures.

Several more photos and video's can be seen from Stafford Bell Ringers facebook page:

https://en-gb.facebook.com/StaffordBellRingers/videos

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New Years Day Ringing 2023

For many years the bell ringers at Haughton have celebrated the New Year by ringing the Tenor 12 times at Midnight followed by ringing the full set of bells for 20 minutes or so. The ringers this year were: Trevor Lock, Trevor Stacey, Karen Powell, Mervyn Lock and Jocelyne Lock. Our performance has been recorded on Bell Board and is available here: https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1577225

We linked our New Year Performance to the 'New Years Day festival of bells' predominately a U.S. bell ringing festival on New Years Day. We have received an email from Paul Ashe based in the U.S. thanking us for our performance, the text is as below:

Hello, Haughton Bell Ringers!

Thank you very kindly for ringing in the New Year with us at the National Bell Festival. I was thrilled to see such enthusiasm across the UK as we cast a spotlight on your amazing bell ringing heritage this year. I wish we had just half of your bell ringing infrastructure in America! That's part of our mission: to get more bells ringing in more places, while growing appreciation for the art of bell ringing in its many forms.

Please pass along my gratitude to the full team. Also, keep me posted on any exciting bell news from your tower. We love to share items of note on our website and made sure to give a shout-out to the British towers that linked their ringing to our BellBoard event.

Link: https://www.bells.org/blog/bells-united-kingdom-ring-new-year

Here's to a peaceful and cheerful year ahead!

Yours, very sincerely,

Paul