Almost everyone in Britain lives within hearing range of bells. They provide the grand soundtrack to our historic moments, call out for our celebrations and toll sadly in empathy with our grief. The bitter-sweet sound of just one bell or the majesty of a whole peal, has become part of the English heritage and much of the country’s history can be traced through the history of its bells. They call us to wake, to pray, to work, to arms, to feast and, in times of crisis, to come together. Above all, bells are the sound of freedom and peace as in World War II they hung silently until the day they could ring in the peace.
The early missionaries used small handbells to call people to worship, with bells being introduced into Christian churches around 400 AD by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Campania. Their adoption on a wide scale does not become apparent until about 550, when they were introduced into France and Italy before being spread to Great Britain by monks and friars joining religious orders.
By 750, bells were sufficiently common for the Archbishop of York to order all priests to toll their bell at certain times. St Dunstan, the then Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, hung bells in all churches under his care during the late 10th Century and gave rules for their use.
In the Middle Ages, bells were thought to have supernatural powers. During the 7th century it is said that the Bishop of Aurelia rang the bells to warn people of an attack. When the enemy heard them, they were said to have fled in fear. The people credited the bells with having saved them. In a world with little man-made noise, the sound of bells was not only majestic, but could be deeply fearful.
The hanging of bells in British churches spread quickly with the Abbeys of Wearmouth and Whitby both recorded as having bells in 680. Popular superstition alleged that bells could ring themselves. It is said that those of Canterbury Cathedral tolled themselves when Thomas-a-Becket was murdered.
Before the reign of Henry VIII and the Protestant Reformation, most bells in churches and monasteries were hung on a simple spindle and chimed by Deacons pulling a rope. Ringers began to experiment with new ways of hanging the bell to get greater control. The first improvement was mounting the bell to a quarter wheel with a spindle serving as the axle and the rope attached to the rim of the wheel. As this method grew popular, bells then began to be mounted on half wheels allowing them to be swung more vigorously.
The desecration of monastic abbeys and buildings often included the removal of many church bells. Following the Reformation, many churches began to rehang bells, with most using the new technology of bells mounted on a whole wheel. This gave much greater control using the rope, but the final refinement was a stay and slider to be able to set the bell. The ringer could now rotate the bells 360 degrees and stop and start the ringing at will.
The cost of maintaining bells and payments to the ringers, who at the time were paid for their services, could be quite a high proportion of running the Parish. St Margaret’s, Westminster (right) paid ringers one shilling each for ringing at the beheading of the Queen of Scots. Less than twenty years later, the same church paid ten times that for ringing ‘at the time when the Parliament House should have been blown up’.
There was a long development period during the decades when the whole wheels were appearing, up to the mid 17th century when orderly ringing involving changing note patterns began to take place. The combination of easier control using the whole wheel and the development of change ringing led to increased interest from lay people, who took over the belfry from the clergy.
The Ordinances of the ‘Companie of Ringers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln’ were sealed on 18 October 1612, making it the oldest surviving Association. There is evidence that ringers were paid by the Cathedral to ring in the late sixteenth century, making this Society the oldest to be able to trace a continuous existence for at least 400 years. The better-known Ancient Society of College Youths was founded in 1637 and continues to this day to provide bellringers for St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.
During the reign of James II (1633-1688) bell ringing became extremely fashionable amongst the aristocracy as it provided physical exercise and intellectual stimulation.
In rural churches, however, bands of ordinary ringers strived to outdo one another. On days of competition the ringing was often preceded by a large meal at the local pub and followed by the presentation of a good hat or a pair of gloves to each ringer in the band that had performed the best.
The recreation began to flourish in and around London during the late 17th Century. An important milestone in the development of change ringing was the 1668 publication by Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman of their book Tintinnalogia, which promised in its subtitle to lay down “plain and easie Rules for Ringing all sorts of Plain Changes.” Stedman followed this in 1677 with another famous early guide, Campanalogia. It revealed the technical improvements in change ringing in only nine years. Tintinnalogia had mentioned a few of the methods; Campanologia mentions dozens of newer methods including introducing his Grandsire Method and his Stedman’s Principle.
These books described the art of change ringing and drew up rules for long series of changes, without the need for calls, whereby bells must change place at each pull of the rope. Further rules soon evolved and changes could be worked out, written down and learned by heart to create patterns where the bells are never sounded in the same order twice. These compositions were named methods and soon hundreds were created, often named after the cities they were first rung in such as Norwich, London or Cambridge.
Tintinnalogia shows the criss crossing movements of the bells as in a peal written in their numbered rows of six, each bell moving with every stroke to the next row and the next and the next, until a complete number of changes possible has been finished. In this book, Stedman outlines his famous principle for five bells, the Stedman Principle, which he invented in 1657. To Stedman is owed that complex system of changes which makes a peal. Because of this, Stedman is called “The Father of Modern Bellringing”. The oldest system of change ringing is Grandsire Doubles (formerly Grandsire Bob), which is rung on five bells. From these two, Grandsire and Stedman, change ringing on five evolved. Later on, change ringing was extended to higher numbers of bells.
In rural areas, standards of behaviour deteriorated with bell ringers described as layabouts and drunks. Often locals saw an opportunity to earn a few shillings, which were often transferred quickly from the church tower to the village inn. Any and every opportunity was taken to ring, for which the tavern keepers were very grateful. Attendance at church services was considered no part of bell ringing.
Stories of bells’ powers to heal, to drive away evil and the devil, to calm storms and to save people from plague, pests and enemies led to bells being rung at the time of death to keep the devil away from the soul of the departed. A sum of money was given to the Church of St Sepulchre, at the Old Bailey, during the 1700’s to pay for bellringing on days of execution. The condemned were given a service, a nosegay of flowers and a peal on the bells.
The first true peal (a extent of ringing with over 5,000 different variations) was believed to have been rung on May 2
1715 at St Peter Mancroft, Norwich.
By the middle of the 18th century many newspapers indicate that the ability to stand for three hours and to ring a peal of 5040 changes was common and also that there was a crowd of listeners eager to hear. At Leicester in March 1731 one of the ringers commented: “We upon bells completed the whole peal of Grandsire Triples in three hours and two minutes to the great satisfaction of thousands both in town and country”.
At Debenham in Suffolk a band of eight young men rung a peal of Bob Major, consisting of 10,080 changes and taking over six hours.
Change ringing began to lower in social esteem, with swearing, smoking and a barrel of beer in the tower normal. Some belfries became notorious as the meeting place of the village riff-raff, who indulged in heavy drinking and riotous behaviour. A deep rift developed between ringers and clergy, with some towers closed by their incumbents. The ringers often broke into the belfries to ring or drink and were usually very independent, reserving the right to choose when to ring. In 1832, the bells of High Wycombe, Bucks rang out to celebrate the passing of the Reform Bill but a few days later on the occasion of the annual visit of the Bishop the ringers refused to turn out as a mark of their disapproval at his having voted against the Bill in the House of Lords.
The bells are church property, so the Rector has law on his side, but little can do against a difficult band of ringers. In rural areas, any action rebounded bcause the community was close knit and everyone was related, which could result in smaller congregations and collection money.
The Victorian reform of the Church of England included a re-examination of practices used since the Reformation. In 1839, the Cambridge Camden Society began a national spring clean of churches, including the tower and bell ringers. Rectors were reinstated in control of bell towers, despite many groups of ringers who fought to preserve their privileges.
Church leaders wanted to improve the standard of ringing and, above all, to ensure proper and reverent behaviour in the ringing chamber and to encourage ringers to attend church services. Many churches had the floor of the ringing chamber removed and the ropes lengthened so that the ringers now performed in full view of the congregation.
By the late 19th Century, women began to take up bell ringing. Miss Alice White of Basingstoke was the first woman to ring a full peal in 1896. As more women became interested, the Ladies Guild of Change Ringers was formed in 1912.
Bellringers were encouraged to appoint a Tower Captain to be responsible for the regular attendance and general conduct of ringers – including giving penalties for bad ringing or behaviour. By 1900, a new generation of ringers had emerged and bellringing was once again respectable and part of the church.
Many bell installations also improved, making the bells easier to ring and triggering more complicated methods requiring a greater degree of concentration, not to be attempted when fuddled with alcohol.
After World War I, disillusion with politicians manifested itself in a swing against organised religion. The number attending church services fell hugely, and the number of bell ringers also declined.
During World War II all church bells were silenced, to ring only to inform of an invasion by enemy troops. This had the effect of reviving interest in the art once peace had returned. BBC sitcom Dad’s Army included an episode where the church bells rang by mistake, leading the Home Guard to believe that an invasion was taking place.
From 1950 there was a rapid increase in the numbers of bellringers, especially young bellringers, with an accompanying increase in the standard of ringing.
Later in the century computers were used to check and develop new compositions and methods and to be used as a practice tool. Very small rings of bells began to appear in private houses − and in one case a pub!
The beginning of this century was noted for two large projects. Ringing in the Millennium attracted a £3m Lottery Grant which led to 150 separate bell restoration and augmentation projects. At the same time the Ring In 2000 project was the largest national ringing event ever staged, aiming to attract 5,000 new ringers who learnt to ring in time for the Millennium. Approximately 95% of all the church bells in the UK were rung on 1 January 2000.
Bells announced the Olympic Games in London. Along the 8,000 miles of the Torch Relay bells rang to celebrate the passing of the Olympic Torch and at the culmination of the Torch Relay, and as part of the London 2012 Festival, at 8.12am on the day of the Opening Ceremony three minutes of ringing all kinds of bells captured the public’s attention to bell ringing and broadcast to an estimated audience of over 12 million people. The great Olympic Bell then featured prominently in the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Commissioned from Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London it was tolled by Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins to open the Ceremony. At 23 tonnes it is the largest harmonically tuned bell in the world.
The Olympic Bell… is the largest harmonically tuned bell in the world and was made by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, whose workshop is just a few miles from the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.
Eight bells were cast at Whitechapel Bell Foundry to form part of the Her Majesty The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. They led the Thames Pageant of 1,000 boats within a floating belfry from which they were rung.
With the centenary of the end of WWI approaching, the Ringing Remembers campaign sought to recruit 1400 new bell ringers to remember the 1400 ringers known not to have returned from the 1914-1918 war. In the event, more than 2000 new volunteers rang in their first significant performance on 11 November 2018, the centenary of The Armistice. New bands were started in towers where regular ringing had not happened for years, and many other bands were strengthened in numbers.
The global pandemic shut churches and towers, and ringing in towers was temporarily suspended and only restarted with severe restrictions many months later. The rapid development of virtual ringing platforms allowed ringers to continue to ring with others from all over the world. Despite the strangeness of this new style of ringing, some took to it immediately, whilst others found pressing a key no substitute for the real thing. Handbells become a more attractive proposition as ringers sought to learn new skills and to enjoy the company of other ringers, despite the necessity to be 2 metres apart and in the open air
Since 2022, bells have signified a number of major national events. They played a role in honoring The Late Queen in her joyful Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June and in marking her death in September. This was followed by a new recruitment drive which attracted massive publicity in the media and again, over 2000 new volunteers signed up to learn to ring for the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on May 6 2023. Teachers were very busy in the run up, with many towers seeing more trainees than they had encountered in a long time.
A couple of girls on the school bus told an 11-year old Heather that they did something called “bellringing” in her village, Bishop’s Waltham in Hampshire. She told her mum she was going to meet friends and secretly went to have a look. She was intrigued, got parental permission to learn and was quickly hooked!
At university in the mid-70s, Heather took advantage of the fantastic ringing opportunities in Birmingham, then began her working life in computer programming in Huntingdon. Marriage and children followed and she turned to teaching in FE, later qualifying as a school teacher. In the 1990s, with a move to northern Lincolnshire, life took a different direction, and she undertook training to formalise her knowledge of British Sign Language and still works part time as a freelance BSL interpreter. Oh, and through taking a part-time temporary job at a flying school, she undertook some training from the owner and got as far as solo circuits.
Heather has rung over 550 peals, conducting 9 of them, however her real passion has always been in sharing her love of the life-long learning that ringing offers. Keen to share good practice in ringing teaching, she spent a good number of years on the CCCBR Education Committee, working on the ITTS, the forerunner of ART’s teacher training programme. When the ART was founded, she was utterly delighted to be one of its earliest tutors.
A firm believer that one size does not fit all, Heather tries to mould ringing teaching to the needs of the individual and is always keen to pick up new tips as well as share hers. “Every day’s a school day”, she says. Many of the 1000+ quarter peals she’s rung have been to develop ringers’ skills, explaining to novices that in a busy practice night they will get perhaps only 5-10 minutes to focus on something, but attempting a quarter offers them a personally tailored 40 minute session.
Empathy with the frustrations of being a learner has been a highlight in recent years through skill development in change-ringing on handbells. Heather had long been able to ring Plain Bob Minor and Major in hand, but beyond that faced an impenetrable wall. During Covid restrictions, she discovered the superb HandBell Stadium and is most grateful to have had patient online coaching and practice. Thereafter, with the Hull Handbells Project, she has continued to progress, often painfully slowly, but can now manage 7-8 to Yorkshire Surprise Major. A proud achievement was recently completing the Learn to Ring Level 5 in Handbell change ringing by conducting a quarter peal of Kent Treble Bob.
Steve’s active ringing career spans some ten years across five decades, with a 40-year break between first learning as a teenager in the ‘70s and his return to ringing in 2015 when his local band was re-formed. Since then, he has dedicated much of his time to learning method ringing and conducting.
He attended ART M1, M2F and M2C courses and became a full member of ART in 2018, is now an ART Assessor, and is currently in the process of becoming an ART Tutor. Steve is Training Officer for the Bicester Branch of the ODG and does a great deal of teaching handling, foundation skills and basic methods.
Steve runs two general practices per week, organises and runs monthly focussed skills practices and has led methods courses organised by the ODG. In 2022, Steve joined Susan Read in forming an ART Hub, Oxon Ringing School and runs the Kirtlington Ringing Centre.
Steve and his wife, Judith, are currently leading a project to analyse and implement an app to automate some of the administration of the Ringing School. This will need the full cooperation of all the current 30 plus teachers and the 20 or so learners. The new software is vital because without that help, the Ringing School administration team could burn out and the Ringing School itself could fall apart!
In her own words…
I learned to ring at the age 42, after my sister started ringing a few years earlier at her local tower in the Cotswolds. At first I couldn’t understand why we had to find out when the local churches were ringing during family holidays, but since I started ringing, we are now finally on the same page!
I was quite a quick learner when it came to bell handing but was advised on a course a few months later that my handling wasn’t right and I needed to count my place and not just learn the numbers. It was a breakthrough moment when it all became clear and I then turned my attention to other new ringers who had been in the same situation as me just a few months before.
Someone mentioned ART to me a few years later and I went on a Module 1 course in 2018. It provided me with all the tools to start teaching and I was keen to get started straight away. I taught my first learner in 2019 and soon after Covid stuck. Not to be deterred, I started again in 2022 with two new ringers and when more people wanted to learn, I encouraged other experienced ringers at my tower to attend a Module 1 course. Ringers from surrounding towers have also attended the course and we now have an active group of teachers and new ringers within a few miles of each other.
Being a mentor has provided me with further experience and I find that every new ringer, has something new to teach me too.
Having come to ringing later in life, I find it easy to relate to new ringers struggles. Seeing them succeed has been a great achievement.
I am an Operations Coordinator for a large high street retailer and in my spare time I like exploring areas of historical interest and natural beauty in my spare time. I am also a keen hill and mountain walker.
In her own words…
‘I learned to handle a bell as a teenager because I was intrigued, and it was the best ‘after-school’ club on offer. College, and then working in Tennessee where, at the time, they had no bells meant a 5-year hiatus from ringing. It wasn’t until I mentioned in passing at a University evening meeting that I had done some ringing that half an hour later I found myself at a practice night not far from York, and by the end of the evening had remembered how to plain hunt – sort of.
My first foray into serious teaching was in 1999 when I became heavily involved in teaching two brand new bands in time to ‘Ring in the Millennium’, and teaching has really been my focus ever since. I find it both challenging and rewarding, and as much a learning experience for me as it is for the person I am teaching. I went on one of the first M1 and then M2 courses at Kineton and became an accredited member of ART in 2013′.
Awaiting biog
Phil learned to ring at the age of 11, having initially only gone to watch. This was at St Columb Major, Cornwall where he still rings and has been tower captain for almost a quarter of a century. They are primarily a call change band, some of whom also ring methods, and have taken part with some success over the years in the traditional Cornish rise-rounds-fall striking competitions. The tower is equiped with a Higby training bell connected to Abel.
After a career in IT working for Cornwall County Council, a reorganisation enabled Phil to take early retirement; the Kernow Old Codgers mid-week group soon followed. He also organises Pydar Improvers practices (affectionately known as PIMPS!) for ringers across the Pydar Deanery and beyond, and with the support of other teachers in the area recently registered the Pydar School of Bellringing as an ART Teaching Hub.
Despite having been teaching ringing for decades Phil firmly believes that there is always something new to learn, and so attended an ART Module 1 course some ten years ago. He has since also completed M2F, and in recent years has been an ART Assessor and is now an ART Tutor.
Now living in Hampshire after spending 40 years in London, Roger has held various posts within local ringing societies. For a long time Roger was a member of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers and served on its Ringing Centres, Towers and Belfries, Redundant Bells and Administrative Committees.
As a Chartered Surveyor, Roger combined his professional career with pleasure and played a leading role in major bell restoration projects at Bermondsey. Isle of Dogs, Limehouse, Rotherhithe and Walworth, as well as many smaller projects, and the transfer of redundant rings of bells from St Stephen Ealing to Aberdeen Cathedral and Homerton to Stone next to Dartford. He therefore has a wealth of knowledge about tower maintenance issues.
To help ensure there were adequate numbers of ringers to ring these restored bells, Roger then turned his attention to issues of recruitment and training. Roger is currently a member of the ART Management Committee and an ART Tutor. He is particularly interested in initiatives to improve the quality of teaching and make more effective use of trainers through the use of simulators.
Lesley Boyle has been ringing for over forty years and has a wide breadth of experience from multi-doubles peals to peals of maximus in hand and tower. She was a participant in winning bands in the National 12 bell competition in her youth, and is now a Tower Captain teaching young and not-so-young learners. She is also local District Ringing Master, serves on the Ely Association Recruitment and Training Committee, and helps with group teaching at the local ART hub. She says “I’ve gained a lot of pleasure out of ringing over the years and want to pass this on to others. I’ve realised through teaching many people to handle that everyone benefits if they’re taught well – the learners progress more quickly and the band is supportive with less frustration. I want ART module attendees to have confidence in teaching handling and foundation skills, and get that buzz out of seeing their own learners’ achievements.”
Nick started ringing when 8 years old in a small village in north Bedfordshire. The church bells had an old oak frame, old rotting wheels and a single old ringer, with whom he chimed the five bells by tying ropes to provide foot loops. When he was 10 years old, a ringing family moved to the village, Michael and Jill Orme, and their son Phillip. Michael decided to fund raise for a new ring of six bells, and Nick was invited to learn to ring properly. By the age of 12, Nick had learned to plain hunt and ring the second to Plain Bob without the numbers, although he still remembers thinking: ‘Yes I’m doing it, but I still don’t really know what it is I’m doing’.
After university Nick’s ringing career continued in Kempston, Bedford. He was Ringing Master for a while at Kempston and for the district and rang at various local towers. Two years and a change of career later Nick moved to Leighton Buzzard, where Mark Regan was fund raising for a new ring of twelve bells. He learnt to ring on twelve and even reached the national twelve bell finals.
Nick lived in Leighton Buzzard for 35 years with his wife, Lindsay, and their two daughters, both of whom learnt to ring. They ran Linslade tower for some years and taught several young ringers towards Bedfordshire Association’s run of success in the RWNYC. After further job changes, they resettled and are now enjoying life in Rugby. All four are ART teachers and Lyndsey and Nick have been mentors since ART first began.
They have taught a new band at nearby Stretton on Dunsmore and are proud of how well they’re doing. They’re the holders of the Rugby Deanery Rounds and Call Changes cup and after two short years are learning to ring simple methods inside.
Nick has been an ART Assessor for about 5 years and is now an ART Tutor. He says that his experiences with ART have been positive, as he can see that students appreciate the way it breaks the teaching down into manageable targets.
“Bellringing is a unique and amazing hobby in many ways, it’s certainly the strangest musical instrument I know, and it produces such an iconic sound. I wish to continue to help others enjoy ringing at whatever level they are at.”
Gill learnt to ring as a teenager at a church with a single bell hung for full circle ringing! It was a few years later that she rung with others.
Involved with Scouting and young people all her life, she organised Scout and Guide visits to the tower and so began teaching many young people to ring. Young ringers camping trips followed and she became a tower grabber, open days and outings to start with, then organising her own ringing holidays and days out with other grabbers. Over 6,000 towers later she still enjoys travelling to new towers.
A member of the CCCBR Education Committee for many years she delivered the Teaching the Teachers Course. When Pip Penney a member of the same Committee proposed the forerunner to ART, Gill was keen to get involved, becoming a founder member, and with working in accounts she took on the role of Treasurer.
Gill particularly enjoys ringing quarter peals on both tower and handbells. She likes teaching all aspects of ringing and finding ways of introducing ringing to young people. She has taken the Lichfield Mobile Belfry, on four occasions, to the International Scout &and Guide Camp at Chatsworth Park, giving thousands of young people an introduction to bellringing.
Outside ringing Gill has a mentoring role in Scouting and is a keen gardener with a love of the countryside.
Frank lives in Herefordshire and rings at his home tower, Bosbury, as well as ringing and teaching in the surrounding towers where most of the teachers are ART accredited or working towards it. Frank has been involved with ART from the beginning − being part of the management team for a number of years and as a Tutor from the early days.
Christine learned to ring in 1981 at Christ Church, North Shields and it’s safe to say she was smitten from the first lesson. “How hard can it be?”, quickly became a challenge to get it right. A house move to Sunderland soon meant that she was ringing at five practice nights per week, with weddings on Saturdays and service ringing on Sundays. A wide variety of methods (and bells) as well as a keen nucleus of local ringers who took her under their wing, gave her a good grounding in basic methods as well as the chance to progress to more complex methods when appropriate.
David is an Australian ringer, resident in Brisbane but a frequent visitor to UK. He helped introduce ART to Australia and New Zealand and was one of the first antipodean ART Tutors to be appointed (2014). He is a past president of ANZAB, was a member of the ‘CRAG’ review team and then served on the Central Council Executive from 2018 to 2022. He writes ‘The Education Column’, published in The Ringing World. As a true ‘international’, he recently (Summer 2023) undertook a tour that included running eight ART modules in North America.
Kathi learnt to ring as an adult in the early 1990s at Christ Church St Laurence in Sydney, Australia. She went on to become a member of the St Mary’s Basilica Society of Bellringers in Sydney and over time have held the roles of Secretary, Ringing Master, Vice Captain, Tower Captain and Treasurer of the St Mary’s Society. She has also acted as Ringing Master at St Paul’s Burwood and St James’ Queens Square.
She has been actively involved as a helper and session leader at the annual Sydney Ringing School for many years. She has held the roles of Secretary, Newsletter Editor, and Education & Training Officer in the local branch of ANZAB.
In her first stint as Education & Training Officer, she was responsible for the E&T needs of 11 towers across NSW, with travelling distances of almost 500 km north, 500 km south and almost 600 km south-west of Sydney! A great way to see the country and meet all the regional ringers.
Currently she lives in the Blue Mountains where she is using Learning the Ropes to teach a new local band from scratch at St Hilda’s Katoomba and ringing as a member of the Lithgow Bellringers. She is now Education & Training Officer (West) with a much more reasonable travel range of only 160 km!
Les learnt to ring as an early teenager at Bournemouth and developed his ringing with the Oxford University Society with whom he rang his first peals.
He moved to Tiverton in 1981 and has been captain at St Peter’s, a fine Taylor ring of 8, at various times. He is active in the local N E Branch of the Devon Guild, being their current Ringing Master. He is also the Librarian of the Guild. In the past he was a member of the Central Council for 15 years, a member of the Ringing Centres Committee and Secretary of ART.
Currently he is a Trustee of ART with responsibility for governance, an ART Tutor and a tutor and trustee for his local Troyte Ringing Centre.
Judith learned to ring at Leeds University as a student, making rapid progress with a good band.
Her career took her to Nottingham where she rang at St Mary’s and then to South Wales ringing at Llandaff Cathedral. The past 35 years have mainly been spent in Dunblane, with a few years in the south of France (great fun but a barren time for ringing!) Judith has been Tower Captain at Dunblane since 2005 and is the Training Officer for the Scottish Association of Change Ringers. She met her husband Chris at University (in the tower naturally) and their 4 grown up children are all ringers too.
Aside from ringing, Judith is a keen musician playing violin with the Stirling Orchestra and handbells with the Dunblane Cathedral Handbell Ringers. Since her recent retirement from IT project management she has more time for all her hobbies.
Neil Donovan lives in Beverley, and rings at the 12-bell St Mary’s Church.
He learned to ring in Rotherham in late 1959. His tutor was Norman Chaddock, one of the founders of the CCCBR Education Committee. Another formative influence was Wilfrid F Moreton, founder of the Hereford Ringing Course.
Neil is a Vice-President (and former President) of the Yorkshire Association of Change Ringers. He has been involved with ringing education in Yorkshire for over 30 years, organising and tutoring on many day courses and a residential course which ran for 27 years.
Neil has been a group leader and tutor at the Hereford Course since the mid-eighties. He prefers beginner groups, and takes great pleasure in helping students to take their first steps in plain hunting and beyond.
Moira started ringing in 1990 at the age of 11. Already an active member of St. George & St Mary’s church, she started to ring as a hobby for her Duke of Edinburgh awards. She rang until around the age of 16, although less frequently and then disappeared from the ringing scene for around 20 years to concentrate on college, university, family and her career.
The bells of Church Gresley were out of action for around 8 years, in which time Moira was ready to return to ringing but didn’t really know anything about the world of ringing outside of Church Gresley or know any other ringers. In 2014 the bells were ready to ring again and Moira was asked to take on the task of getting them ringing again, probably because she had pestered the PCC for the duration of the bells being unringable. Not knowing where to start, Moira agreed to do something. Thankfully by chance Moira had become friends with John Cater on Facebook some months before so asked if he would help her. Moira and John had not seen each other for 20+ years, but John kindly agreed to help. John introduce Moira to ART and they both quickly went through M1 & M2 and taught a new band from scratch. Unfortunately the bells at Gresley are out of action again, but that’s another story.
Moira is now a teacher, mentor, Tutor and Assessor for ART and runs the South Derbyshire Ringing Centre with John.
If Moira isn’t ringing then she’s busy doing something else, DIY, tending to her allotment, working away, spending time with her dog, cats and family, running or going to bootcamp. If there ever is time to relax though, it’s with a large glass of Sauvignon!
Clare learned to ring, aged 12, in the 1970s at Harborne in Birmingham and has rung there ever since. From a young age she began helping with teaching there, but it wasn’t until much later, when she became Tower Captain at Harborne, that she really developed her teaching skills.
A varied career began with 15 years making stained glass windows, followed by 19 years as a front-line paramedic with West Midlands Ambulance Service. Clare has just started a new venture, becoming a freelance First Aid Instructor.
In 2013 Clare came up with the crazy idea of a bell ringing school to centralise training in Birmingham and spread the load and responsibility of teaching, thereby supporting towers without teachers and distributing new ringers to towers within the St Martin’s Guild. Having presented the idea, she was surprised, but extremely grateful, that it was immediately supported by key figures in the Guild and thus the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing was born.
Involvement with ART came about in 2012, when one of the ringers at Harborne asked Clare to mentor her through Module 1 of the teaching course. Having attended the course and mentored several teachers Care became an ART Assessor and subsequently, in 2017, a Tutor for ART.
David Sparling learned to ring at St Michael’s Kirby-le-Soken in Essex at the age of 10. He was introduced to handbell ringing and also given the opportunity to ring on 10 and 12 bells with the University of London Society of Change ringers during his studies at Imperial College.
David served as Tower Captain at Kirby-le-Soken from 1985 to 1997 and he is a past Master and a Life Vice President of the Essex Association of Change Ringers.
As well as teaching at his home tower, David has been a regular tutor on the annual Essex Ringing Course since its foundation in 1991. In addition he has run a number of District and Association training events over the years and now helps teach at the ART Hub at Ardleigh.
He was appointed as an ART Tutor in April 2019 and also serves on the ART Management Committee.
The ART Supporters programme provides a framework and benefits for those who support our work financially.
£5 per month or £50 per year
Package includes recognition on the Supporters page of the ART website, 25% off a ticket for the ART Conference, statement of our thanks posted on ART’s social media pages and an annual Supporter’s certificate.
£20 per month or £250 per year
All of the above, plus an extra ART Conference ticket at 25% off, the opportunity to host a stand at the ART Conference, and acknowledgement of thanks in Chairman’s Chatter.
£100 per month or £1000 per year
Package includes 50% off two tickets for the ART Conference. In additon to the benefits enjoyed by Friends and Sponsors, Patrons will be recognised on all ART Teaching Scheme and Learning the Ropes materials and certificates, and on every page of the ART website.
For regular payments by Standing Order.
You can often set up a Standing Order using online banking. Use these details.
Name: Association of Ringing Teachers
Sort Code: 30-90-89
Account Number: 36810368
Reference: please add your name
Otherwise you can use a paper form.
For one-off or monthly payments direct from your bank account.
Name: Association of Ringing Teachers
Sort Code: 30-90-89
Account Number: 36810368
Reference: please add your name
For one-off or monthly payments using a card or your paypal account.
Matt started ringing in Walsall as a teenager in the mid 1980’s when a school friend persuaded him to have a go. Although he has been ringing for over 30 years it is only since moving to Lilleshall, Shropshire in 2013 that he started (out of necessity) teaching people to ring. Building and developing the band at Lilleshall resulted in a particular interest in recruitment and retention.
Matt is currently the recruitment and retention lead for CCCBR’s Volunteer and Leadership Group and has helped develop the Recruitment and Retention Workshop in partnership with ART.
Taught to ring in Gloucestershire as a teenager, and now living and ringing in Hampshire after spending 40 years in London, Roger has held various posts on committees and as an officer within local ringing societies including Master of the London County Association. For a long time Roger was a member of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers and served on its Ringing Centres, Towers & Belfries, Redundant Bells and Administrative Committees.
As a Chartered Surveyor, Roger combined his professional career with pleasure and played a leading role in major bell restoration projects at Bermondsey. Isle of Dogs, Limehouse, Rotherhithe and Walworth, as well as many smaller projects, and the transfer of redundant rings of bells from St Stephen Ealing to Aberdeen Cathedral and Homerton to Stone next to Dartford.
To help ensure there were adequate numbers of ringers to ring these restored bells, Roger turned his attention to issues of recruitment and training. Roger was a founder member of the Docklands Ringing Centre and Director of the former Ringing Foundation, which led to the establishment of ART. He was also a member of the review group (CRAG) which led to the current reforms of the Central Council.
Roger is currently a member of the ART Management Committee and an ART Tutor. He is also the owner of the Charmborough Ring and particularly interested in new initiatives to ensure that systems are in place to adequately follow up new ringers, and maximise retention, as well making more effective use of trainers through the use of simulators.
Dee learnt to ring in North Herts in the 70s as a teenager. She was very lucky to have a teacher who insisted on good handling and ringing with a gang of teenage bell ringers – they enjoyed lots of ringing based adventures!
Going to University in Nottingham to study Applied Chemistry, Dee joined NUSCR and was introduced to course bells, ringing surprise methods and ringing on higher numbers. She still maintains close links with the Society and was proud to hold the post of NUSCR President for 5 years.
In the 80’s Dee’s parents retired to Cornwall and during school holidays she had the privilege of ringing Call Changes with the local ringers and going on tour with the Cornish Choughs. She started her teaching career in the Midlands before finally settling to live in Burwell Cambs.
Dee is a very active ringer. As well as being the Burwell Tower Captain, she is the Ely DA Recruitment and Training Officer and Chair of Stretham REC. At the REC she enjoys the weekly Saturday morning teaching sessions with their buzzing atmosphere. The ART resources and her ART training are put to good use in her ringing activities.
With her teaching background, Dee finds being an ART Assessor extremely rewarding. She enjoys visiting different practices and guiding teachers and mentors. As a member of the ART Management Committee, she looks forward to supporting and developing the area of ART Assessment.
Clare learned to ring, aged 12, in the 1970s at Harborne in Birmingham and has rung there ever since. From a young age she began helping with teaching there, but it wasn’t until much later, when she became Tower Captain at Harborne, that she really developed her teaching skills.
A varied career began with 15 years making stained glass windows, followed by 19 years as a front-line paramedic with West Midlands Ambulance Service. Clare has just started a new venture, becoming a freelance First Aid Instructor.
In 2013 Clare came up with the crazy idea of a bell ringing school to centralise training in Birmingham and spread the load and responsibility of teaching, thereby supporting towers without teachers and distributing new ringers to towers within the St Martin’s Guild. Having presented the idea, she was surprised, but extremely grateful, that it was immediately supported by key figures in the Guild and thus the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing was born.
Involvement with ART came about in 2012, when one of the ringers at Harborne asked Clare to mentor her through Module 1 of the teaching course. Having attended the course and mentored several teachers Care became an ART Assessor and subsequently, in 2017, a Tutor for ART.
Arthur learned to ring as a teenager at his local tower, Theale, in West Berkshire. Following his time as a student at the University of York, He moved to Birmingham where he still lives and rings today. Arthur is a teacher by profession, with leadership responsibilities for curriculum and teacher development. He is thus excited to be working with ART as their Education Officer. Arthur believes that ringing teachers can learn from the wider research into educational pedagogy and has written a series of articles in the Ringing World on this topic.
Arthur has served as both Ringing Master and Secretary to the St Martin’s Guild. He has supported the development of the Birmingham School of Ringing as well as being an active supporter of ART since its inception.
Monica started ringing in 2017, having been inspired to have a go by Ringing Remembers. She was hooked from day one and quickly worked her way through the Learning the Ropes scheme, ringing her first quarter less than a year later and completing the scheme in just under two years. She attended the ART M1 day course in March 2022 and is now an accredited ART Member.
Monica has undertaken a number of voluntary roles in bellringing, including Administrator for the LtR Facebook group, Treasurer for the North West Ringing Course, Secretary of the LACR Fylde Branch and the Lancashire Lads & Lasses group. She is also Tower Secretary at her home tower, St. Anne’s-on-the-Sea, Lancashire.
After university, Monica spent 18 years working in IT, initially in technical roles, but quickly progressing to project and programme management. After taking four years out when her children were small, Monica has worked in schools for the past ten years, latterly as a secondary school Bursar. She is keen to use all the transferable skills she brings with her to benefit ART.
Lesley is Tower Captain of Swaffham Bulbeck, a tower of 8 bells, near Cambridge and has been ringing since she was a teenager. Although Lesley has rung all sorts over the years ranging from Doubles to Surprise Maximus, she says that one of the most fulfilling things she has done is to teach people.
Lesley has been an ART tutor for a few years now and has had the pleasure of introducing many people to the structured ART approach − no matter how experienced people have been at teaching handling when attending her courses, there has always been some very useful tips they have been able to take away with them, and ultimately some learner has benefited, giving Lesley so much satisfaction.
Like many ringers of a certain age Paul was a teenage starter − part of a completely novice young band brought together in 1977 by a newly installed rector to provide ringing at a near silent tower. This was at Pontesbury in mid-Shropshire, top end of the Hereford Diocesan Guild territory, and there he stayed (not making much progress) until a move to the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth. Paul initially didn’t ring at the single available tower in the locality (Llanbadarn Fawr) for fear that the student band would be too high-powered! However, he eventually plucked up courage and needn’t have been worried. This was really the start of his ringing commitment which has accompanied life ever since and a return back to Shropshire over 30 years ago.
Paul’s home tower is Edgmond, in the Shropshire Association, but he still retains links to the Hereford DG through ringing regularly at Much Wenlock. He is a committed member of the Welsh Colleges’ Society and is proud to be a member of the Cumberlands too. Paul had a period of eleven years as the Hereford DG’s Education Officer and places ringing training, teaching and education in his list of ringing priorities alongside local ringing commitments.
Residential ringing courses have been a mainstay of Paul’s ringing life and he has enjoyed student, helper and tutor roles at the Keele, Whirlow and Hereford Ringing Courses over many years. As a university senior lecturer, education, teaching and training are uppermost too in his professional work life – he has a passion about learning development, knowledge transfer and student engagement and is keen to bring these skills to ringing standards through ART and its work.
David learned to ring at St Michael’s Kirby-le-Soken at the age of 10. He was introduced to handbell ringing during his university studies at Imperial College, London by the late, great Roger Bailey and also given the opportunity to ring on 10 and 12 bells as part of the University of London band.
After university, 12-bell ringing continued under the guidance of George Pipe at St Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich. David served as Tower Captain at Kirby-le-Soken from 1985 to 1997. He is a past Master and and a Life Vice President of the Essex Association of Change Ringers and has been a regular tutor on the annual Essex Ringing Course since its foundation in 1991. In addition he has run a number of District and Association Training events over the years.
David was appointed as an ART Tutor in April 2019 and acts as the Tutor Coordinator.
TESTING
Sue has been ringing since 2010 following an appeal in the local parish magazine. Four years later she was appointed Southern District Secretary of the Surrey Association, taking care of the membership records and preparing the accounts and annual report entries. Soon after she became Tower Captain of her local tower, St Margaret, Ockley.
Sue qualified as a chartered accountant in the 1980’s but gave it up a few years later due to family commitments and now lives on a smallholding, gardening on a large scale as well as running a walking group and acting as treasurer to a local charity.
Sue has been associated with ART since attending Module 1 in October 2015 and is ART’s Treasurer.
Annie grew up in a family where it was ringing on a Friday evening and a rugby match on Wednesday and so was set the pattern and passions of her life. She learnt to ring in Leicester and has spent time ringing in Staffordshire, Kent and Dorset. Currently she rings in Warwick, where the band rings at both towers.
Following a career in HR, Annie is now retired and spends much of her time with her family and helping with grandchildren. She is General Secretary of the Coventry Guild, a member of the Central Council and has been a member of ART since its inception.
Enjoying ringing and feeling part of a team are important for Annie and reflect the values she brings to her role as Secretary of ART.
Andrew joined the ART Management Committee as Chairman in 2023. Having worked in the university sector for over 30 years, Andrew brings an understanding of how to work through others and an in-depth experience of the world of quality assurance of education programmes and activities.
Whilst new to ART, Andrew has taught many people to ring, principally during his 28 years as Ringing Master of St. Mary’s Richmond, North Yorkshire, his home tower. He is a firm believer in theory and practice being necessary to develop ringers, and welcomes the opportunity to bring the skills and experiences of his work and his hobby to bear on the task of maintaining and developing bellringing through the Association of Ringing Teachers.