BELL RINGING

The sound of church bells gently drifting over the rooftops on a Sunday morning is quintessentially England. It is the sound of our heritage for hundreds of years.

Sadly, many of our towers are silent due to two factors:

• lack of maintenance, which eventually makes the bells unsafe and unringable;
• lack of ringers, whose numbers, due to more trendy past times, have dwindled.

Listed below are the churches in Tameside, which, in the whole of the area, have less than thirty ringers.

Staley	St Paul	8 Bells	5 Ringers
Stalybridge	Holy Trinity	8 Bells	0 Ringers
Mottram	St Michael	8 Bells	13 Ringers
Hyde	St George	8 Bells	10 Ringers
Ashton	St Michael	13 Bells	0 Ringers
Ashton	St Peter	8 Bells	0 Ringers
Mossley	St George	8 Bells	0 Ringers
Mossley	St John	6 Bells	0 Ringers
Denton	St Anne	6 Bells	0 Ringers
Hurst	St John	8 Bells	0 Ringers

Bell ringing provides not only physical exercise, but the art of change ringing offers mental stimulation as well. Change ringing, apart from England, is continued in various old colonial areas, such as the U S A and Australia.

The bells are cast, as they were 500 years ago, in a foundry, either Taylor’s of Loughborough, or Whitechapel in London. The bell is then hung in a frame and rung by pulling a rope, which turns the bell 360 degrees. The sound is made by a clapper coming into contact with the sound bow of the bell.

I have rung for over fifty years, and would feel extremely sad if the sound of bells was silenced forever. If you would like to learn more of the art of Campanology, please contact one of the people below.

East Cheshire Branch: Rebecca Glen: 0161 456 4233
Ringing Master: Alan McFall: 0161 427 4099
James Marchbank: 077313 14947

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