Apr. 11th, 2023 at 9:03 PM
Bovey Tracey Ringers' Outing
When Stuart and I moved to Bovey Tracey last year, I'd never even thought about becoming a bell ringer. But I've always been curious about old churches, and one Sunday I found an open door in the tower of the church in Bovey, and sneaked up the tiny medieval staircase, expecting to find bells. I climbed a long way up, dusting the walls with my dress, and only made it as far as a platform with medieval clock workings. I couldn't figure out where the bell ringers would stand. When I started asking lots of questions of a ringer named Katie Law, she urged me to come along to a ringing practice one Monday evening and find out.
That was several months ago, and I've been going along (up a different staircase) to the weekly practices at Bovey and Highweek towers for several months now, and really enjoying it. It's much more difficult and complex than I thought it would be, but the other ringers have been very patient with me. I've been able to meet a whole bunch of other learners who have recently joined, with this big national Coronation drive to recruit more ringers, so the skill doesn't die out.
One of the things I didn't know about were Ringers' Outings, where ringers from one tower travel around to a bunch of other towers to ring, with at least one stop halfway through at a pub. One of my teachers, Peter Richards, started taking pub lunch orders for an April outing, so I got in quick with my menu items and signed up to go along. I hoped I'd be able to ring well enough by then to take part. (I'm not so sure my regular illustration blog readers will be interested in all this, but I don't want to forget anything about the day, so this blog is really just for me.)
On Easter Monday, I carpooled with two other ringers, both named Mike, and we headed off to meet the other ringers at our first stop, Tedburn St Mary:
Throughout the course of the day, the people in our car got quite expert at whipping the wheels off Mike's wheelchair, fitting it all into the boot of my car, then reassembling it when we arrived at each church. But each tower had its own unique tower entrance, so it was an interesting challenge getting Mike and the chair upstairs. But he's been up hundreds (thousands?) of towers and on this trip, there was always a way.
At Tedburn St Mary, the bell ringers' platform was open to the rest of the church, so we could get a great view down the nave and of the ceiling from the balcony railing.
There were quite a few of us up there (14, perhaps?) and six bells, so we took turns ringing.
I'd only ever rung bells at Bovey and Highweek; these bells felt quite different and I really flubbed it on my first attempt. But everyone was very helpful and I did a bit better after we all stood our bells and then had a second go at ringing.
One of the things they taught me fairly early on was how to tie a loose knot in the tail end of the rope, to keep people from tripping on it. Everyone ties their knot a bit differently, but Mike's knot seems the most straightforward, so I tie mine Mike's way. Most of the time, it doesn't fall apart.
Here's another ringer named Emma who's a newbie like me. I was very glad to have her there, so we could have a laugh when things sounded impenetrably complicated. There are two ways of ringing: one is very Devon, and called 'call changes', where the person in charge tells people when to make their bells swap places in the ringing pattern. Emma and I are only just starting to get our heads around that one . But there's another way of ringing, called 'method ringing', where everyone memorises complicated patterns and change places with every stroke. To be honest, I can't really see myself being able to do method ringing. But I couldn't see myself doing call changes either, and I'm starting to be able to do that, so maybe there's hope. Anyway, if I never master method ringing, it's perfectly acceptable in Devon to be only able to do call changes, so that's a comfort.
After we'd all done some ringing (for half an hour? an hour? I never managed to keep track of the time), we headed off to the second stop, Cheriton Bishop:
One of my favourite things about visiting English villages is popping into the local church, which is often unlocked, to have a little nose around. I never know what I'm going to find, and I'm always on the lookout for interesting carvings, paintings or unusual architecture.
Cheriton Bishop had a lovely painted medieval wooden screen. Some of the faces of the saints had been gouged out by the iconoclasts in the sixteenth century, but some remained. I particularly liked this saint carrying his head in his arms.
And check out the carvings on this pulpit! So many interesting motifs, including a mermaid:
I'd love to go back and make drawings of these, they're terrific.
One of our ringers was particularly young, and did some colouring with Katie while the rest of us rang the six bells.
But his grandparents still made sure he was able to do a bit of chiming at each tower.
The ringing room had a useful diagramme of a bell, in case you're interested:
Our third stop was Spreyton:
The entrance was gorgeous, with a long row of trees and flowers blooming everywhere in the churchyard.
You can see the big stained glass window in the ringing room at the back of the church.
The ringing room is on the ground floor, but it's quite small, so only six people went in at a time to ring.
The ceiling had several cleverly carved wooden bosses. Here's one of the three hares or rabbits, a common Devon motif (possibly related to the rabbit warrens farmed to feed local tin miners).
At these churches, you need to look way up, but also underfoot, to see carved grave stones. I'm never sure if the person was originally buried in the church, or if they pulled in the tombstone a few generations later, to save it from dissolving in the rain. Anyway, this one has some cool motifs.
And then it was time for lunch! Peter had booked us all into the Tom Cobley Tavern very near the church in Spreyton, where we had a good feed, and the ones who weren't driving had some nice drinks, too.
The littlest ringer and I sat together and drew all the other ringers.
After lunch Mike Wigney navigated me through some very narrow lanes, true Dartmoor style, 'til we got to our fourth stop, South Tawton:
South Tawton was quite a big, grand place, with a lot of great details. (Look at the shape of that keyhole!)
This tower didn't have a winding staircase, just a very narrow straight one.
This ringing room with its six bells was open to the rest of the church as well, so you can spot the ringers up there.
The walls had SO MANY certificates, they have won a LOT of competitions over the years.
Here's another photo from my little walkabout while the others were ringing.
One of the most interesting things about South Tawton is the ceiling. Look at those angels: they run right along the length of the roof and I think each one is completely unique. They're gorgeous.
Not only that, but there are loads of unique carved bosses. Check out this owl, a total boss, that one.
And lovely windows, too!
We were met at all the towers by the tower captains, who let us into the towers to ring, which was very good of them to do on their Easter Monday holiday!
We then set off for our fifth stop, Belstone. (I realised I'd been here once before, the starting point for a beautiful Dartmoor hike.)
You can catch a glimpse here of the baptismal font, all decorated with flowers.
This was the smallest of the churches we visited on the outing, but it still had six lightweight bells, with the ringing room on the ground floor.
More lovely windows:
The ringing room wasn't so lovely, it was used to store furniture and ladders and things, but it was functional enough to have another good ring.
The outside looked wonderful in the sunshine.
By this point, my brain was starting to get a bit overloaded with ringing; I could hear the bells going in my brain even in the car between churches, and the big lunch had kicked in, making several of us a little sleepy. But we had one more stop to make, Okehampton.
This was the perfect time to visit these churches, so many flowers.
Okehampton has a very tall tower, and we climbed up and up and up! The ringing room was more functional than pretty, but comfortably large enough for all of us to fit in and ring all eight bells.
Here's a poem I spotted on the wall:
Our group numbers changed throughout the day as people joined at various legs of the road trip, but here are the ringers who were there right at the end! A very new ringer, Judith, arrived just in time to listen to us from down below the tower and she was able to take the photo for us. Huge thanks to Mike for navigating in my car, Peter for all your work organising, Katie and Robert for publicising, the rest of the ringers for all the things you did that I probably don't even know about yet, and all the generous people who came to greet us and open up the towers. Thank you for making my first ringers' outing so much fun!
On Easter Monday, I carpooled with two other ringers, both named Mike, and we headed off to meet the other ringers at our first stop, Tedburn St Mary:
Throughout the course of the day, the people in our car got quite expert at whipping the wheels off Mike's wheelchair, fitting it all into the boot of my car, then reassembling it when we arrived at each church. But each tower had its own unique tower entrance, so it was an interesting challenge getting Mike and the chair upstairs. But he's been up hundreds (thousands?) of towers and on this trip, there was always a way.
At Tedburn St Mary, the bell ringers' platform was open to the rest of the church, so we could get a great view down the nave and of the ceiling from the balcony railing.
There were quite a few of us up there (14, perhaps?) and six bells, so we took turns ringing.
I'd only ever rung bells at Bovey and Highweek; these bells felt quite different and I really flubbed it on my first attempt. But everyone was very helpful and I did a bit better after we all stood our bells and then had a second go at ringing.
One of the things they taught me fairly early on was how to tie a loose knot in the tail end of the rope, to keep people from tripping on it. Everyone ties their knot a bit differently, but Mike's knot seems the most straightforward, so I tie mine Mike's way. Most of the time, it doesn't fall apart.
Here's another ringer named Emma who's a newbie like me. I was very glad to have her there, so we could have a laugh when things sounded impenetrably complicated. There are two ways of ringing: one is very Devon, and called 'call changes', where the person in charge tells people when to make their bells swap places in the ringing pattern. Emma and I are only just starting to get our heads around that one . But there's another way of ringing, called 'method ringing', where everyone memorises complicated patterns and change places with every stroke. To be honest, I can't really see myself being able to do method ringing. But I couldn't see myself doing call changes either, and I'm starting to be able to do that, so maybe there's hope. Anyway, if I never master method ringing, it's perfectly acceptable in Devon to be only able to do call changes, so that's a comfort.
After we'd all done some ringing (for half an hour? an hour? I never managed to keep track of the time), we headed off to the second stop, Cheriton Bishop:
One of my favourite things about visiting English villages is popping into the local church, which is often unlocked, to have a little nose around. I never know what I'm going to find, and I'm always on the lookout for interesting carvings, paintings or unusual architecture.
Cheriton Bishop had a lovely painted medieval wooden screen. Some of the faces of the saints had been gouged out by the iconoclasts in the sixteenth century, but some remained. I particularly liked this saint carrying his head in his arms.
And check out the carvings on this pulpit! So many interesting motifs, including a mermaid:
I'd love to go back and make drawings of these, they're terrific.
One of our ringers was particularly young, and did some colouring with Katie while the rest of us rang the six bells.
But his grandparents still made sure he was able to do a bit of chiming at each tower.
The ringing room had a useful diagramme of a bell, in case you're interested:
Our third stop was Spreyton:
The entrance was gorgeous, with a long row of trees and flowers blooming everywhere in the churchyard.
You can see the big stained glass window in the ringing room at the back of the church.
The ringing room is on the ground floor, but it's quite small, so only six people went in at a time to ring.
The ceiling had several cleverly carved wooden bosses. Here's one of the three hares or rabbits, a common Devon motif (possibly related to the rabbit warrens farmed to feed local tin miners).
At these churches, you need to look way up, but also underfoot, to see carved grave stones. I'm never sure if the person was originally buried in the church, or if they pulled in the tombstone a few generations later, to save it from dissolving in the rain. Anyway, this one has some cool motifs.
And then it was time for lunch! Peter had booked us all into the Tom Cobley Tavern very near the church in Spreyton, where we had a good feed, and the ones who weren't driving had some nice drinks, too.
The littlest ringer and I sat together and drew all the other ringers.
After lunch Mike Wigney navigated me through some very narrow lanes, true Dartmoor style, 'til we got to our fourth stop, South Tawton:
South Tawton was quite a big, grand place, with a lot of great details. (Look at the shape of that keyhole!)
This tower didn't have a winding staircase, just a very narrow straight one.
This ringing room with its six bells was open to the rest of the church as well, so you can spot the ringers up there.
The walls had SO MANY certificates, they have won a LOT of competitions over the years.
Here's another photo from my little walkabout while the others were ringing.
One of the most interesting things about South Tawton is the ceiling. Look at those angels: they run right along the length of the roof and I think each one is completely unique. They're gorgeous.
Not only that, but there are loads of unique carved bosses. Check out this owl, a total boss, that one.
And lovely windows, too!
We were met at all the towers by the tower captains, who let us into the towers to ring, which was very good of them to do on their Easter Monday holiday!
We then set off for our fifth stop, Belstone. (I realised I'd been here once before, the starting point for a beautiful Dartmoor hike.)
You can catch a glimpse here of the baptismal font, all decorated with flowers.
This was the smallest of the churches we visited on the outing, but it still had six lightweight bells, with the ringing room on the ground floor.
More lovely windows:
The ringing room wasn't so lovely, it was used to store furniture and ladders and things, but it was functional enough to have another good ring.
The outside looked wonderful in the sunshine.
By this point, my brain was starting to get a bit overloaded with ringing; I could hear the bells going in my brain even in the car between churches, and the big lunch had kicked in, making several of us a little sleepy. But we had one more stop to make, Okehampton.
This was the perfect time to visit these churches, so many flowers.
Okehampton has a very tall tower, and we climbed up and up and up! The ringing room was more functional than pretty, but comfortably large enough for all of us to fit in and ring all eight bells.
Here's a poem I spotted on the wall:
Our group numbers changed throughout the day as people joined at various legs of the road trip, but here are the ringers who were there right at the end! A very new ringer, Judith, arrived just in time to listen to us from down below the tower and she was able to take the photo for us. Huge thanks to Mike for navigating in my car, Peter for all your work organising, Katie and Robert for publicising, the rest of the ringers for all the things you did that I probably don't even know about yet, and all the generous people who came to greet us and open up the towers. Thank you for making my first ringers' outing so much fun!