St Mary Magdalene
Bell Restoration Project
WHY WE NEED NEW BELLS
The bells of St Mary Magdalene, Richmond have the reputation of being difficult to ring. That’s not to say they can’t be rung well but learners tend to struggle and even experienced ringers are inclined to give Richmond a miss. A flourishing team of ringers is essential for a church with bells and Richmond’s current band is determined to make sure that St Mary’s remains fully operational. This means recruiting new ringers to replace those who give up, move away or retire.
That’s why we have applied - and received permission – to carry out a complete revamp of the Richmond bells so that they will no longer be intimidating for beginners. The result will be a more musical sound from bells rehung to make them easier to ring.
The present and the future is in all our hands.
The Vision for St Mary Magdalene
Our purpose is to repair the present day and secure the future. As Richmond ringers, we have a responsibility to St Mary Magdalene parish church and to the wider community to provide the musical sound of bells. Currently, the sound is not tuneful, and it is not possible to re-tune all the bells. For St Mary’s, the bells are a public signal of a church in action and we want to play our part in sustaining the tradition of church bell ringing, a unique feature of the nation’s soundscape over many centuries.
Unfortunately, the Richmond bells are less and less fit for our purpose. The bells were rehung in 1981 but the largest bell, the tenor, has always been too big to run smoothly in the tower’s steel frame and the other bells are also difficult to ring. They are an intimidating prospect for learners and we need to attract new people if bell ringing is to flourish. As our tower captain Jackie Harrison explains, we have lost more recruits than we have retained.
We have been advised by bell specialists around the country that it is not possible to make significant improvements to the sound or ringability by simple maintenance. We need to incorporate some smaller bells to fit with our existing historic bells to make a new peal for St Mary Magdalene.
How Five Become Eight
To solve the problem of the Richmond bells they have to be lighter so they will sit more comfortably in their metal frame. This means the tenor at 18.5cwt (bells are still identified using imperial weights) has to go – although the metal will be melted down to make new bells.
The table shows the new bells and the existing bells and how they will sit together to form a new ring of eight bells that will fit properly into the steel frame in the St Mary’s tower.
Richmond Bells in Action
At St Mary Magdalene, Richmond, our ring of eight bells - dating from the 17th and 18th centuries and rehung in the 1980s in a clockwise frame - still fills the air across the town with ringing that is centuries in the making. What you are about to hear is the method known as Plain Bob Major, one of the well-established “eight-bell” (Major) change-ringing patterns. In Plain Bob Major, the lightest bell (the treble) “hunts” (moves steadily through the order) throughout, while the other bells follow a regular pattern of shifting and “dodging” around it.
This video offers a window into the musical and mathematical precision of change ringing, as each bell takes its turn in a carefully choreographed sequence.