Change ringing, handling bells in a playful way.

Background sound: change ringing with 12 Bells – Lincoln Cathedral England (turn speakers on from your computer)

 

What is  change ringing?

In England, the  change ringing is mostly practiced. This is done not only on festivity days, but also on sports competitions.
The interest for this is growing in the Netherlands as well.
Changeringing can be done with any number of bells, a peal. (a peal is any number of bells)
Suppose we take a peal of six bells.
From each of the six bells,  ropes are usually guided to the  level below.
Six persons stand at this lower level  in a circle. They are refered to as the changeringers. They will ring the bells in a special manner. Each ringing handles an identical single bell.
The changeringers take turns to ring their bells ones.
Lets call those changeringers 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6.
Below is an example in which manner the bells can be rung (Plain Hunt).
There are more complicated exercises as well.

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

2

1

4

3

6

5

2

4

1

6

3

5

4

2

6

1

5

3

4

6

2

5

1

3

6

4

5

2

3

1

6

5

4

3

2

1

5

6

3

4

1

2

5

3

6

1

4

2

3

5

1

6

2

4

3

1

5

2

6

4

1

3

2

5

4

6

1

2

3

4

5

6

 

The sequences are different and quite frequently, the ringer does not move from his place.
The more bells are being used, the more sequences are then possible.
See example below.

Number of bells

Number of sequences
   

2

 2

3

 3 x 2 = 6

4

 4 x 6 = 24

5

 5 x 24 = 120

6

 6 x 120 = 720

7

 7 x 720 = 5040

8

 8 x 5040 = 40320

9

 9 x 40320 = 362880

10

 10 x 362880 = 3628800

 

Click on this line to see more complicated example for peal of 4 ringers.

 

A peal of three bells

 

So a peal of 6 bells has 720 sequence (row) possibilities.
If every quarter of a second a bell is ringed, it takes, in case of 6 bells, 18 minutes to have each sequence passing by once.
With 8 bells this takes 22 hours and 24 minutes.
In practice, of course this doesn’t happen other than for a new record in the Guiness Book of records. But will there be any village allowing this?


 

Every bell is rang by hand via a special wheel of which the bell will come at rest in the mouth upward position.
Change ringing has the following characteristics:

The bells will be tuned exactly like the bells of a carillon.
The Bellfoundry Petit and Fritsen supplies the right bells for your change ringing peal. If you want to add new bells to your peal, we can, after making a frequency analysis, supply you new bells according the tuning of your existing bells. 

A peal of seven bells in the hall of Change Ringers in St Mary’s Church in Beverly

Some websites about change ringing Geldrops Wisselluidersgilde
Cathedral Bells and Bellringers (Exeter)