While we were clearing up after breakfast on Sunday morning we heard bells from the church across the river. This wasn’t the ding-dong-ding clanging of one or two bells, but the unmistakable melodious and hypnotic pattern of change ringing. We quickly made our way through town to the church and as I was taking a photo of the bell tower a gentleman rode up on his bicycle and said hello. We told him we loved the bells, and he asked if we’d like to come up to see.
“Oh yes!” we said.
“It’s just the ringing room,” he cautioned, and we followed him up a very narrow spiral staircase to the tower room.
Our host guided us to a bench where we could sit out of the way and watch.
Change ringing is the art of ringing tuned bells in a mathematic pattern that varies the order of striking. This can be by method ringing, where the ringers memorize the pattern, or by call changes, where a leader calls the changes, as in square dancing.
Jack and I have always been fascinated by change ringing, and have on our bucket list hearing a full peal which, depending on how many bells are involved, can take hours. We envision picnicking near a bell tower on a warm afternoon allowing ourselves to be mesmerized.
It’s amazing how much focus is required to ring your bell at the right time. The sequence keeps changing and the ringers really need to pay attention. During another Method one of the ringers got distracted and missed her cue to stop her bell. Oops.
The Methods have quaint names like Grandsire Doubles or Plain Bob Minor. On this particular day, one of the ringers told me they were doing a “simple” Cambridge Major pattern.
When the ringing stopped we were welcomed heartily by the ringers and asked to sign the guest book. Then we followed them to another church where they rang again.
We left them to it and continued to explore beautiful Abingdon. We haven’t spent a lot of time in England but I think we might not find a more charming place than this.
