. To be a Beacon of Love & Light to all .
Geoffrey Pullin was awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in The Queen’s Birthday Honours list earlier this year for services to the community of Badby and bellringing. The Medal and Certificate were presented by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant for Northamptonshire, James Saunders Watson. The ceremony took place in the council chamber of the 18th century former County Hall in Northampton on Wednesday afternoon in the presence of Geoff’s wife, Carole and ten guests.
RINGING TIMES
Sunday Service Ringing 9.20 to 10.00 amLEARNERS
At either of these times we welcome visitors interested in seeing what goes on up the tower, lapsed bell ringers and anyone who feels that they might like to learn to ring. Bell ringing is suitable for all from about the age of 11 to well into retirement. One to one tuition can be provided at any time. There is a spiral staircase of 24 steps to the ringing room.VISITS AND PEALS
Visits can generally be arranged, preferably on Friday nights and Saturdays and sometimes also on Sundays. We ask for at least a months’ notice.LOCATION
The church is located in Church Walk, just off the Market Square. Post code NN11 4BL, What3Words reference: prickly.drips.cocoons. See also main Church location tab [Find us]. There is generally reasonable free parking near the Church in the evenings and weekends, but beware that the Tesco car park has a 2.5 hour limit that is enforced by ANPR cameras.
RINGING TERMS
This has been written for anyone who is not familiar with the terms used in our posts to make them more meaningful as with most rules there are always exceptions but in general terms these are the meanings and words we commonly use.
In Holy Cross tower there is a ring or peal of 10 bells. The tenor or heaviest bell sounds the note of Eb, E flat and weighs 18-3-11 that is 18 hundredweight, 3 quarters and 11 lbs. [ = 958 kg]. They are tuned in a diatonic scale from the treble bell, the lightest, to the tenor, the heaviest, so Holy Cross third bell is an octave above the tenor.
English church bell ringing is unique in that we can control the speed at which the bell rings rather than a random chime when the bells are mouth down as done on the continent of Europe and elsewhere. The English system is often referred to as full circle ringing. The bell is paused balanced mouth up which enables us to control the speed of the bell. The bell has two strokes looking at the bell from one side from the mouth up position it rotates 360 or a few more degrees say clockwise to mouth up again, on the next stroke it will rotate 360 degrees anticlockwise to mouth up again. The two strokes are called hand stroke and back stroke. The bell can be pulled in two different directions by the way the bell rope is wound round a wheel attached to the bell. When the ringers have the fluffy bit, the sally, in their hand this is the hand stroke when it is the tail end of the rope in their hand it is the back stroke. We ring with the bells up but leave them mouth down when ringing finishes for safety reasons and for the clock to chime on them.
We start off ringing in rounds from the lightest which can be any bell depending on the number being rung, in a musical scale. Ringing should also finish in rounds.