I think you’d better… come inside.’ Up we went to the ringing chamber where I discovered that the inner workings of a ring of bells is just as eerie and impressive as its sound. Back in 2016 I was invited to visit a bell tower. You can’t speak. Well then, here’s a suggestion for the Archbishop. Especially the Abbey bells. Mission, BC V2V 4J5 Half a mile away, over the river in Lambeth Palace, sits our tortured Archbishop of Canterbury. See the Abbey bells page for a history of bell ringing at Westminster Abbey. The Abbey bells can usually be heard before services and in celebration of church festivals and royal occasions. Jane Deadman, head bellringer at Chichester Cathedral, says: ‘We won’t be able to ring all eight bells, it won’t be all the ringers, but it will be enough for ringing to be part of the cathedral services, and to remind people which day is Sunday.’. What’s missing, I realised as I walked past Westminster Abbey, is the bells. This year, of all years, we need the bells back. But the C of E, not known for laughing in the face of risk assessment, has said that it ‘would be good to get ringing going’. This meant precision ringing was possible, and that bells could be rung in a sequence, and that this sequence could be changed — hence ringing the changes, and the strange mathematical tumbling peal that’s the soundtrack of English life. My notes from the time say it was like a straight replay of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Then sometime in the 1600s a Brit thought to invent a way of turning bells in a full circle, leaving the bell balanced upside down. The Abbey is not currently open for worship or general visiting but you are welcome to visit for individual prayer. It wasn’t the people — though Westminster is a zombie town these days, and even Pret A Manger, once hectic as a trading floor, is calm. Tuning is achieved at the foundry by shaving off some of the bronze from the inside of the bell. Tuning is achieved at the foundry by shaving off some of the bronze from the inside of the bell. The heaviest bell weighs 1300 kilograms, the lightest 273 kilograms. There’s nothing for it but to stop and gawp up like a guppy at feeding time. The bells have been silent since March, since the Church of England abandoned its churches, and it’s strange how claustrophobic it feels without them. Bells on Sunday for Remembrance comes from Westminster Abbey. Mary Wakefield is commissioning editor of The Spectator. A fortnight ago he suggested that we were all suffering from ‘a sort of national PTSD’ brought on by uncertainty. The Abbey bells can usually be heard before services and in celebration of church festivals and royal occasions. Will Westminster Abbey ring for All Souls Day? The rules that generate the different changes are called ‘methods’, and even reading the list of methods is soothing: Black Cat Delight Royal, Grandsire Caters, Chartres Delight Royal, Percy’s Tea Strainer Treble Place Major… there are special methods rung for feast days and royal birthdays, except not this year. The heaviest bell weighs 1300 kilograms, the lightest 273 kilograms. The bells were dedicated in the fall of 1956 and lowered in the bell tower after its completion the next summer. All Rights Reserved, Westminster Abbey Ltd. Everything about bellringing is an antidote to terrible 2020. The Company of Ringers there goes back as far as 1255, when the Abbey possessed five bells. The bells of Westminster Abbey will still ring out to celebrate the Duke of York's 60th birthday, despite his involvement in the ongoing investigation into paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. My understanding is that, historically and traditionally, the tenor bell at Westminster Abbey is tolled only for the death of the sovereign -- and when that occurs -- it is tolled once each minute for a number of minutes equal to the years the sovereign was of age. There are families of ringers rising to the challenge, I’ve heard, because people in the same bubble can ring adjacent bells; there are even ringers who can handle two ropes at a time — surely now is their moment. Until they could be placed in their permanent tower in Mission, the abbey bells were simply chimed” or struck with external hammers. I can’t think of a better remedy for national PTSD. If you’re anywhere near the Abbey when the bells start up, it’s like being caught out in a monsoon. The Pfitzer Memorial Tower was designed by Mr Asbjorn Gathe, the architect for all the abbey and seminary buildings. Instead of depressing the country by diagnosing it as nuts, why not cheer it up? More to the point, churches around the country have started up again: St Michael’s Church in Bishop’s Stortford, Otley Parish Church, St John the Baptist in Beeston… some have moved ringers on to different levels so they can be distanced, Nantwich has inserted timber struts between the walls to allow a rope to be drawn into a new position, Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon has started using an apparatus called an Ellacombe which allows all the bells to be rung by just one man. It’s overwhelming and joyful. The bells were carefully tuned to be in the key of E major. This method was developed and perfected in post- Reformation England. info@westminsterabbey.ca. We are usually open at the times below, but please note that the Abbey will be closed all day on Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th November:Monday - Saturday: 10:00am - 3:00pmSunday: 12:30pm - 2:00pm. Following the latest guidelines from the Church of England and the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, ringing at the Abbey by our volunteer bell ringers is currently suspended during the coronavirus outbreak. You can’t think. Like their mediaeval counterparts, the abbey bells ring out for the divine worship. pealing of the bells in ever- changing sequences. Because the bells are in a separate chamber above, what you see when you enter the ringing room is simply a circle of men and women facing each other, staring intently as if attempting telepathy, counting, feeling their way into the changes.
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