Tag Archives: bellringing

25 Years ago

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Twenty five years ago the tower of St James’ Bermondsey was in scaffolding. The heavy old ring of 10 bells dating from 1823 had been removed, as they had become derelict and a new ring of 6 bells had just been cast in the Whitechapel Bellfoundry. They were rung for the first time in February 1991. Two more were added to complete the current ring of 8 bells in November 1991.

Over the years we have taught many people to ring on these bells and we plan to hold a reunion of the ringers in November 2016 to mark the 25th anniversary. Over 40 people attended the 20th anniversary reunion 5 years ago.

The old ring of 10 bells were restored and two more were added to make a ring of 12 bells, which were installed in St James’s Cathedral, Toronto, Canada. Three of our ringers travelled to Canada to attend the dedication weekend, including ringing for a special service attended by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on 27th June 1997.

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The new bells
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The old bells leave
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The 20th Anniversary

Andrew reaches Level 5

By ringing inside to a quarter of Grandsire Doubles at Isle of Dogs, Andrew Booth has become the 28th person to achieve Level 5 of Learning the Ropes and qualifies for a prize under the ART Awards scheme.

The Association of Ringing Teachers is now moving out of its set up phase. Going forward the focus will be less on delivering ITTS courses and is shifting to supporting the 250+ and growing number of members who have gained Accreditation. Thanks to the generosity of various parties, the inaugural ART Awards will be presented at the Annual Conference at Loughborough Bell-foundry on Saturday 12th March 2016.

One of the Awards is for all those who have achieved Learning the Ropes Level 5, who will be invited to a centrally-organised weekend event: The Learning the Ropes Masterclass. This will be run in the second half of 2016 by a team of hand-picked, top flight ringers and will be designed to provide opportunities that are not normally available locally. Travel and accommodation will be arranged/paid for participants based in the mainland UK.

Andrew thanks all those who have helped him reach this milestone over the last couple of years and with twelve of our other ringers at various stages on the pathway, we hope that they too will qualify for similar awards over the next year or two. We look forward to celebrating their success.

http://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=984637

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The band after the quarter, Andy, Mike, Morag, Drew, Bridget, Roger.

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Bermondsey ringers on Italian on-line TV channel

On-line TV channels are becoming quite popular, especially with younger people, as they provide short snappy easily digestible content rather than the longer content of traditional TV channels and media. Therefore it makes sense for us to follow up any opportunities for us to feature.

We were recently approached by Francesca Albini of Tele-in-liguria, who contacted us through the Association of Ringing Teachers website and wanted to film one of the Bermondsey practices. Francesca thanked us very much for a lovely evening and the video is already online, if you want to watch it visit:

http://tele-in-liguria-webtv.com/2015/12/09/chi-suona-la-campana-breve-viaggio-nel-mondo-della-campanologia-inglese-dalla-storia-alla-pratica-servizio-di-francesca-albini-inviata-speciale-da-londra-per-tele-in-liguria-web-tv/

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Open towers at Bermondsey and Rotherhithe – 20th June

This Saturday 20th June, between 2.30 and 5.00pm the Docklands Ringers are opening the bell towers at both St James’ Bermondsey and St Mary’s Rotherhithe to members of the public. This is an opportunity to climb the tower to see the bells ringing and watch the ringers pulling the ropes. The art of ringing the changes is quite fascinating and the ringers will explain how it is done. You may even be able to have a quick go – it is great fun.

The eight bells at St James’ were installed in 1990, but replaced an earlier set cast in 1828, reputedly from canon captured at the battle of Sebastapol. The eight bells at St Mary’s were restored in 1996, but six of the bells were originally cast in 1748 and they replace an even earlier set. Both peals of bells therefore have a long history and the bells have been rung to celebrate many historic occasions over the centuries.

There is an active team of ringers who ring at both towers. For those who would like to find out more and have a longer go there will be a ‘taster evening’ at both towers on Tuesday 23rd June 7.30pm – 8.30pm