June 2012

Having just been on holiday I think we sometimes fail to realise just how lucky we are at Swanage to have such a lovely peal of bells, let alone such a nice peal of 8.   Our holiday started off in Devon, on the Hartland peninsular where there is just one church, at Stoke, covering the whole peninsular. It is an extraordinary church with the second highest spire in Devon and you can see it for miles around.  It has a peal of 6 bells.  We had hoped to ring them but due to extra ringing over Jubilee and weddings they had decided to cancel their practice the week we were there.   We then went to the Isles of Scilly.  Now they didn’t have a peal of bells at all until 2009.  The six churches on the islands all only had one bell until the good folk of St Mary’s took action and mounted a very impressive fund raising campaign which resulted in them getting a peal of 8 bells by 2009.  Apparently the pitch and weight of the bells was set to try and maximise the ability of them being heard by all the “off” islands – Tresco, Bryher etc - some considerable distances!  Sadly we didn’t get to hear them ring – I imagine the noise in the churchyard must be very loud!

For  some unfathomable reason, ringing church bells where you haven’t rung before is called “grabbing”.   Recently I ‘grabbed’ Stratton in Dorset – another interesting tower where you can literally hear the bats in the belfry.  Goodness knows what the ringing does to their hearing but I was glad I couldn’t hear them whilst actually ringing!  Later this month I’m off to grab Brownsea Island which I’m looking forward to immensely.

 The Parish Fete is on 21^st July. We will be ringing for 15 minutes before the opening of the Fete at 12 noon and then afterwards the tower will be open for an hour until 1pm. You are all very welcome to come and watch us ring, or maybe even have a go yourself. 

Why don’t you come and grab Swanage?!