Spires and Steeples

Spires & Steeples logo

The Spires & Steeples Arts and Heritage Trail was officially launched over the May Bank Holiday Weekend, with various events taking place along the route. The Spires & Steeples Trail is an inspirational new 26 mile, arts and heritage trail, starting at Lincoln Cathedral and ending at St. Denys’s Church in Sleaford.

The trail passes through many picturesque, quiet country villages between Lincoln and Sleaford, and is crammed full of local art works that have been created by the local communities, as well as many beautiful historic village Churches, which are open for you to look around. Many of the art works that have been specially created tell a story and portray the local heritage and history of the area.

More details can be found at the County Countryside website or on the Spires and Steeples website.

When the local ringers at Nocton heard about the launch of the trail they got in contact with the organisers to see if Church bells along the route could play a   part in the weekend’s events. We got a very positive response back from the organizers who were very keen, where possible for the Church bells to be rung. The organizers thought it would be lovely to have the bells at each Church along the trail pealing out of the spires and steeples that dominate the route, hence the name “Spires & Steeples” trail.

The local ringers sat down and put together a proposal of what they thought they could manage to organise in the short space of time, with the ringers that were available. It was therefore decided to organize a relay of ringing on Saturday 3rd May at as many of the Churches along the route with three or more bells. After many phone calls to tower correspondents, Church Wardens & Incumbents we managed to arrange for the bells to be rung at 10 out of the 13 churches along the route and so started the hard work of finding enough ringers to ring at them all. It was decided to have about 30 minutes of general ringing at all the towers apart from at Washingborough and Branston where Quarter Peals would be attempted during events, which had been specially arranged at these villages for the launch of the trail.

The morning of Saturday 3rd May arrived with the sun bathing down and ringing started at 1020 at the first tower of the day St Mary le Wigford in Lincoln (4).

Next we moved to Washingborough (8) where a Quarter Peal of Grandsire Doubles with a 7,6,8 cover was successfully rung. This was rung whilst a new piece of art work for Washingborough was being unveiled.

We then moved on to Branston (6) where another Quarter Peal, this time Plain Bob Minor was attempted, but sadly this was unsuccessful. This was rung as the walkers walked the trail from Washingborough to Branston for the unveiling of another new piece of art work, this time for Branston.

We then had a short break for lunch before moving on to a tower which is not normally visited by ringers, Heighington (4) which has four bells hung dead for chiming. Much fun was had trying to chime these bells to different minimus methods with all the ringers present grabbing a new tower!

After this we would have gone to Potterhanworth but sadly the tower is still closed for work so we moved on to the following towers where general ringing took place for about half an hour Nocton (6), Dunston (5), Metheringham (8) & Blankney (6) before a well earned tea break.

The last two towers of the day were both three bells towers. The first was an unusual grab for all the ringers, being the swing chime three at Digby (3) which were rehung for swing chiming in 2000. Again much fun was had swing chiming these bells and all the possible changes to plain hunt on three were chimed!

The final tower of the day was the three bells hung this time for traditional full circle ringing at Dorrington (3) where ringing came to an end at 1800 and so the relay of ringing was complete and a well earned rest followed!

Unfortunately we could not ring at the last two towers on the route, Ruskington and Sleaford, due to the short notice, and due to the fact it was Sleaford’s Music Weekend.

All this would not have been possible without the support of all the ringers who gave up their Saturday to come and take part in this relay of ringing. A total of 19 ringers took part in ringing for the launch of the trail over the weekend. The following ringers took part, in alphabetical order:

Ron Applewhite (Potterhanworth/Nocton), Clive Brooke (Martin/Timberland), Jonathan Clark (Washingborough), Ray Cucksey (Branston), John Fry (Nocton/Dunston), Angela Holt (Waddington), Christine Jackson (Bardney), John Nicholson (Potterhanworth/Nocton), Jayne Palmer (Metheringham), Amanda Pues (Waddington), Janet Risdale (Martin/Timberland), Sue Stead (Harmston), Colin Ward (Washingborough), Sue Waterfall (Washingborough), Graham Whittaker (Washingborough), Jean Williams (Waddington), Christopher Woodcock (Potterhanworth/Nocton), Rachel Woodcock (Potterhanworth/Nocton), Yvonne Woodcock (Potterhanworth/Nocton)

Yvonne & Christopher Woodcock rang at all ten towers on the Saturday Relay.

This was not the only ringing that took place over the weekend. The Quarter Peal that was lost at Branston on the Saturday was rearranged and rung on Sunday afternoon, and was successful second time round. Ringing also took place at Nocton on Sunday morning, whilst a guided walk around the new Nocton Village Trail took place, and lastly a Quarter Peal was rung at Nocton before Practice Night on the Tuesday evening that ended the Spires & Steeples Launch Ringing.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the ringers who took part in ringing over the weekend for the launch of this exciting new trail, and to thank all the tower correspondents, Church Wardens and Incumbents for meeting us and for letting us ring their bells.

The following Quarters Peals were rung over the weekend for the launch of the trail:

WASHINGBOROUGH, St. John Evangelist
Saturday 3rd May 2008
1260 Grandsire Doubles with a 7,6,8 cover
1) Graham Whittaker
2) Amanda Pues
3) Colin Ward
4) Jonathan Clark
5) Christopher C P Woodcock (C)
6) Jean Williams
7) Sue Waterfall
8) Yvonne A. Woodcock
First Quarter Peal for 6. Well Done Jean!

Branston, All Saints
Sunday 4th May 2008
1260 Grandsire & Plain Bob Doubles
(720 Grandsire & 540 Plain Bob)
1) Janet M. Risdale
2) John Fry
3) Ron Applewhite
4) John Nicholson
5) Christopher C P Woodcock (C)
6) Raymond A Cucksey

Nocton, All Saints
 Tuesday 6th May 2008
1260 Grandsire & Plain Bob Doubles
(720 Grandsire & 540 Plain Bob)
1) Janet M. Risdale
2) Yvonne A. Woodcock
3) John Nicholson
4) Christine J Jackson
5) Christopher C P Woodcock (C)
6) Clive Brooke

For more details see the County website, from which various PDFs showing the route can be downloaded, together with a Newsletter.

There is a further website under construction specific to the trail.