Central Branch Evensong Ringing at the Cathedral, 11th Aug 2013

Central Branch events are a bit like buses. You don't get one for a while then two come along at once. Hot on the heels of the excellent half year meeting at Nocton and Potterhanworth the previous day, came this little outing to the Cathedral to ring for Evensong.

One of our young ringers on the 5th
Ringing some Yorkshire Royal

I turned up relatively early to find Richard Spencer (Central Branch Ringing Master) perched on the wall outside the West Front with a small group of enthusiastic ringers. Shortly after 2:00pm we made our way into the Cathedral and stood by the main west door and admired the Cathedral architecture until Les Townsend arrived and let us into the Ringers Chapel.

The Chapel was sadly not looking its best as the workers were using it as a storage area for the new fire alarm equipment being installed. Nevertheless we waited until sufficient members had turned up and then made our way up the tower to the Ringing Room.

Ringing Grandsire Caters (clip courtesy of Claire Howard)

Richard Spencer kicked things off with some Rounds. There being a great many ringers new to ringing on large numbers of bells, he sensibly decided to start off on 10 bells until people had settled in. There then followed a variety of ringing including Plain Bob Cinques, Yorkshire Surprise Royal and Grandsire Caters, liberally interspersed with some Rounds for those less experienced on 12 bells.

The session finished off with some Plain Hunt on 11, before hanging the ropes up. We thought that that was the end of the visit, but Les had one more treat in store, which was a walk out onto the balcony overlooking the West Front and the Castle.

Out on the Balcony
View from the Balcony

Once we had soaked up the view, we made our way down to the ground and dispersed, but not before some of us had been to Dennett's Ice Cream Parlour in the Bailgate for some well earned refreshment.

Many thanks to Les Townsend and the Dean and Chapter for the use of the bells and thanks to Richard Spencer for looking after us all so well.

Jonathan Clark (webmaster)