www.aylshamtower.org.uk

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


[This site was last updated on 25th FEBRUARY, 2010.]

Bell Ringing Times at Aylsham for March, 2010:
Sundays 09.20 to 10.00 h. General ringing before Morning Service
Tuesdays 19.30 to 21.00 h. General ringing practice
Quarter-peals will occasionally be attempted on Sunday mornings when ringing will start at 09.00 h. For latest information, please contact the Tower Secretary on 01263 732462.
Guild ringing at Erpingham:
Sun. 14th Mar. 08.30 to 09.30 h. Quarter peal

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 unpressurised occasions. Quarter-peal and Wedding 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. Join a tradition dating back 400 years – become a bell ringer.

Routine maintenance amongst the bells and at the other higher levels in our tower is normally a summer activity when the longer daylight hours, higher temperatures and clear skies make excursions into the bell chamber and beyond always tolerable and often a pleasure. Unscheduled visits to these upper reaches out of season, when the north winds whistle through the wooden louvers, the snow-filled skies permit but little natural light, and the winter’s cold gnaws at working fingers, are planned with less enthusiasm however. One such visit was undertaken of necessity last week when a wayward leather gaiter was seen to be bobbing up and down on top of the sally of bell No.7, some forty or so feet below its prescribed position. These leather tubes are meant to encircle the bell-rope at the point at which it passes through the rim of the wheel, thus preserving the rope from excessive wear – a matter of some concern with new ropes costing around £150 each.

To address the problem, before a Tuesday evening practice, three of us donned hard hats and fitted ‘head’ lights, braced ourselves for the biting cold, and ascended into the darkness, first of the clock-room, and then beyond into the bell-chamber. After much hauling on slack ropes and grovelling in dark, spider-infested corners (goodness knows how these whoppers survive the winter up there!), the itinerant gaiter was re-located in its appointed place at the circumference of the wheel. It was at this point that our steeple-keeper displayed a hitherto unknown talent, for he produced a sewing-needle and a stout piece of thread and proceeded to stitch the thick leather gaiter to the keflon-rich rope – no mean feat, and especially in that freezing temperature.

So – bell No.7 now has its rope protection firmly fixed in place – I imagine for many years ahead. But the sting comes in the tail to this little story, for I quickly scanned my lamp over the other nine gaiters before the descent. At least half of them had crept from their moorings! It looks like another and much longer session of stitching for the steeple keeper, but I guess we can wait for a kinder spell of weather before we join the spiders once again.

Keith Shaw Tower Secretary