About Bellringing

St Mary's Ringers

There has been an active band of ringers during most of the 135 years of ringing on both the old and new bells. There is a wide range of ages and abilities and all ringers and potential recruits are most welcome to come along to a 'free evening class.

We support the Church and Peterborough Diocesan Guild and have appreciated the support given to us in recent times when sadly four of our regular ringers passed away over a two year period in the late 1990s. Since 2000 we have introduced associate membership in addition to full membership and have a full ringing and social calendar. Visitors are most welcome when they visit northern Cambridgeshire and we can recommend some lovely bells and pubs in this part of the world.

Bellringing

Bellringing celebrates the joy of weddings and victories, intones the sadness of deaths and funerals, and summons people to church. The casual listener immediately recognises that some bells play hymns, songs and melodies. Those bells are called carillons or chimes. They do not swing and one person controls the striking of the clappers.

The bells at St Mary’s church and in towers like it all over the country produce no recognisable tunes. Yet they are rung in sequences as disciplined and orderly as the stones and timbers of the towers themselves. These bells, rung in an ancient yet very modern way, produce a rich cascade of sound. This is called change ringing.

Change ringing requires special bells, special "music" and ordinary people who enjoy climbing towers, working as a team, and performing "The Exercise." The human ingredient is critical because change ringing is very different from playing a carillon or chime. It is not a single person sitting at a keyboard. There are no computers or electronic devices. Change ringing depends on real bells, each swung in a complete circle by a single person: eight bells as at St Mary’s - eight people, twelve bells as at Peterborough Cathedral - twelve people, standing in a circle.

Change Ringing

Change ringing is an English tradition, which consists of ringing bells so that the order in which they sound is systematically changed.

Changes may be called out individually by the conductor, and this style is known as call-change ringing. Alternatively, the changes may be made to a pre-set pattern or "method", and each ringer must learn that method in order to know when his or her particular bell must sound in each row. This style is known as method ringing.

Call changes and a few standard methods are rung in most towers and this makes it very easy for ringers to visit and ring with other bands. There are many more advanced methods which provide a continuing challenge as ringers gain proficiency over time.