Category: Monthly Reports

Strangely, the period leading up to Easter is a rather quiet one for ringers, in every sense of the word. In common with most other churches we do not practice during Holy Week, we do not ring for any Services on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday or Holy Saturday, nor do we allow visitors to ring our bells during that period. However, the bells rang out joyously as ever to celebrate Easter Day.

With Easter now behind us we look forward to an upturn in activities during May. Firstly on Saturday 10th May our ringers will be going on their annual outing. This year the venue is the area around Braintree in Essex where we will be ringing at six churches and enjoying a pub lunch. A report of the outing will appear in next month’s issue. Then on Monday 19th May we hope to be able to ring for a 12.30pm wedding; however at the time of writing we are experiencing difficulty in finding people who are available to ring in the middle of a working day, and we may have to bring in ringers from other towers to help. It should hopefully be easier to find ringers for the Ascension Day High Mass on Thursday evening, 29th May.

However the highlight of the month must be the visit of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers to ring our bells between 3.15 and 4.15pm on Saturday 24th May. The Central Council is the global governing body of bell-ringing and they will be visiting us during their Annual Meeting which this year is being held near Maidstone.

Other than the above, we will be ringing on our normal Tuesday practice evening and for the regular Sunday Services during May.

Visiting Us

As you will know from recent Reports we have several promising young ringers amongst our band, so on the Monday morning of half term week we ran an additional practice especially for them. We also invited youngsters from neighbouring Marden, with adults from both towers providing support. Following two hours of practice the young people, along with the helpers, enjoyed a sumptuous lunch in the church, kindly provided by some of the adults. The event proved very worthwhile and we are now looking at holding similar events during future school holidays, perhaps extending invitations to young people at other towers in the Maidstone District.

Staplehurst is certainly a very popular place to ring at the moment. At our practice on 18th February we had a record 26 ringers, including 6 visitors, a number only normally achieved at some Cathedrals. Then on 9th March we were pleased to welcome some visitors from the Central European Association of ringers. They were visiting the UK to ring peals at Maidstone and Benenden and chose to join us for Sunday morning service ringing.

We have visitors coming to ring quarter-peals on our bells between 12noon and 1.00pm on Thursday 3rd April and between 11.00am and 12 noon on Monday 28th April. That aside, we will be ringing for our normal Tuesday practice evening and regular Sunday Services. However, as usual we will not be practicing during Holy Week.

Visiting Us

February was once again a fairly quiet month for our bellringers, so there is not much to report. However, on the morning of Saturday 8th February several of our ringers attended a District Practice at Benenden. There are 12 bells at Benenden, which presents a different sort of challenge to our ringers who are more used to ringing on Staplehurst’s ten bells; indeed for some of our younger ringers it was the first time they had ever rung on twelve, and they acquitted themselves quite well.

Congratulations are also due to Stafford Biddulph, who has returned to ringing after a lengthy break and rang his first quarter-peal for more than a decade for the Sunday evening service on 2nd February. The quarter-peal was also Richard Barclay’s 100th on Staplehurst bells.

In addition to our normal Tuesday practice evening and regular Sunday Services, we will also be ringing for the Ash Wednesday service on 5th March.

Visiting Us

All in all January was a rather quiet month for the Staplehurst ringers, following the busy lead up to Christmas, although we did ring for the Epiphany High Mass on 6th January. Then on Saturday 11th January three of our younger ringers attended a District ringing meeting at Boxley at which one of them, Ruby Bayley, was elected to membership of the Kent County Association of Change Ringers.

There is no additional ringing planned for February, so we will just be ringing on our normal Tuesday practice evening and for the regular Sunday Services.

Visiting Us

All Saints Church Website (External link)