Ring of bells

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"Ring of bells" (or "peal of bells") is a term most often applied to a set of bells hung in the English style, typically for change ringing. Often hung in a church tower, such a set can include from three to sixteen bells (six- and eight-bell towers are particularly common), nearly often tuned to the notes of a diatonic scale (without intervening chromatic notes).

The distinctive feature of these English-style rings is that they are hung for full-circle ringing: each bell is suspended from a (usually wooden) headstock, which in turn is connected to the bellframe by bearings, allowing the bell to swing freely through just over 360 degrees; the headstock is fitted with a wooden wheel around which a rope is wrapped.

Each time it sounds, a bell's motion begins in the "upside-down" position, with the mouth upwards. As the ringer pulls the rope the bell swings down and then back up again on the other side, describing slightly more than a 360-degree circle. During the swing, the clapper inside the bell will have struck the soundbow, making the bell resonate once. Each pull reverses the direction of the bell's motion; as the bell swings back and forth, the strokes are called "handstroke" and "backstroke" by turns. After the handstroke a portion of the bell-rope is wrapped around almost the entirety of the wheel and the ringer's arms are above his or her head holding the rope's tail end; after the backstroke most of the rope is again free and the ringer is comfortably gripping the rope some way up, usually along a soft woolen thickening called a sally.

The bells are usually arranged in an upper room called a bell loft in such a way that their ropes fall into the room below, called the ringing chamber, in a circle. Clockwise circles are most common, but anticlockwise ones are far from unheard-of.

A key resource is Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers, which aims to list most towers worldwide with bells hung for full-circle ringing.

Bell ringing was (and still is) very common in England, and there are many pubs around the country called "The Ring of Bells".

[edit] History

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Before the 18th century, English churches used to have only three or four bells. Of the few with six bells in the 17th century, those of the Cathedral and St Swithun's Church in Worcester, St Peter's Church at Martley with the oldest set cast as a ring, and monastic churches at Evesham, Malvern, and Pershore, still remain. Those of about half a dozen other churches are cracked, replaced, or gone._^[1] 18th century the only two rings of twelve bells in England were at St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London, and York Minster. Rings of six were common, rings of eight being less so, and rings of ten rare. The first ring of ten bells was installed at New College, Oxford.