www.aylshamtower.org.uk

ST. MICHAEL'S GUILD OF RINGERS
AYLSHAM PARISH CHURCH, NORFOLK.

[This site was last updated on 27th June, 2008.]

Ringing Times for July & August, 2008:
Aylsham: Sundays 09.20 to 10.00 h. Pre-service: General ringing.
Tuesdays 19.30 to 21.00 h. Practice: General ringing
Sat. Jly.12 09.30 to 12.30 h. Full Peal [see below]
Sat. Aug.2 15.00 to 16.00 h. Quarter-peal
Sat. Aug.30 c.14.45 to 15.30 h. Following a Wedding.
Erpingham: Sun. Jly.6 /Aug.3 08.30 to 09.30 Pre-service: Quarter-peal.
Marsham: Sun.Jly.20/Aug.17 10.40 to 11.15 Pre-service: General ringing
Fri. Jly.11 09.30 to 12.30 h. Full Peal [see below]
Tue.Jly.15 13.45 to 14.30 h. Visitors from Wiltshire

All ringers are most welcome to join our local band for any of our general ringing sessions. Lapsed ringers considering a return to the Exercise are particularly encouraged to come along at these times, which are always friendly and un-pressurised occasions. Quarter-peal ringing is by invitation, but competent ringers are always being sought for these events and should inform the Secretary if they would like to be involved. Non ringers wishing to learn should contact the Tower Captain, Daniel Phillips, on 01603 279406.


It has been a busy period in our world of ringing, compounded by a personal compulsion to pursue a trail laid over an eighty-six year period by the composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who died fifty years ago this year. It is not difficult to construct an argument to view R.V.W. as the musical equivalent of the poet, John Betjeman, whose enthusiasm for the sound of English church bells is self evident in so many of his poems. Vaughan Williams’s contribution to the survival of the English folk-song is well documented through so much of his music.
I left Aylsham to begin the Vaughan Williams adventure on Ascension Day, but not before I had taken part in an inspirational early morning quarter peal of Plain Bob Triples with fellow ringers Danny Phillips, Alan Syder, Beverley Mayne, Maureen Gardiner, David Hoare, David Woor and conductor Lawrence Smith. The occasion was further enhanced after the ringing by the splendid breakfast we enjoyed together at Simply 16 next door to the church, which also fortified Hilary and me for the start of our journey to the south and west later in the day.
The V.W. trail took us to Dorking in Surrey, where a recent statue of our hero conducts an invisible orchestra outside the local concert hall. It took us also to his family home at Leith Hill, where I discovered, too late alas, that the terrain was not for out-of-condition cyclists. Coldharbour church, where the young Ralph practised the organ and later married his first wife, Adeline Fisher, had no bells for us to ring, and the village of his birth, Down Ampney in Gloucestershire, which we visited later in our travels, had only an unringable 9 cwt. five. This village, incidentally, gives its name to the hymn tune composed by Vaughan Williams and commonly sung to Come down, O love divine.
I had high hopes of sustaining my passion for ringing at Cirencester when we pedalled off from our camp site early one sunny Sunday for the morning service at the parish church there, with its fine ring of twelve. Alas, ringing only took place on alternate Sundays and - yes - this was not one of them! Happily, this disappointment was to be mitigated in part some time later when I rang before Sunday service on the beautiful heavy eight bells of Repton parish church in Derbyshire (which church, incidentally, also houses a brand new two manual organ by Peter Collins who built the St. Peter Mancroft organ in Norwich some years ago).
In last month’s magazine I gave details of the then forthcoming annual St. Michael’s Guild Outing. This took place on Saturday, 9th June, and over twenty members and friends enjoyed a day in the Fens ringing at some of the spectacular towers in the far west of our county. Thanks were expressed to Canon David Hoare for arranging this excellent tour, which included lunch at a local hostelry.
Full-peals, consisting of around three hours of non-stop ringing, are a rare event in our town; indeed it has long been our policy to limit the number of full-peals to but two a year. When a full-peal is attempted on St. Michael’s bells we try to ensure that the quality of the ringing is of a high standard. It is particularly pleasing, therefore, to be able to announce a peal attempt here by some of the country’s finest ringers on Saturday, 12th July next. The Ringing Society of Royal Cumberland Youths was founded in 1747. Though enjoying an international membership, it is based in London at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. This will be the first time these ringers will have visited Aylsham as a Society, and we look forward to welcoming the band of ten who are expected to attempt a Surprise Royal method. Ringing is due to commence at about 09.30 hrs. For those avid for yet more ringing, a different band from the same Society will be going for a full-peal on the eight bells of Marsham on the morning of Friday, 11th.
Keith L. Shaw Guild Secretary