The Rt. Rev. Alan Wilson, the Bishop of Buckingham, joined the congregation of St Laurence Church in Winslow, south of London, for a celebration and blessing of the church’s newly-restored eight bells.
Winslow rector the Rev Belinda Searle-Barnes said: “This special benefice service offers us a marvellous opportunity to celebrate the wonderful bells of St Laurence.
“They are now restored and able to give of their full potential to call people to worship at this beautiful church and to ring out in celebration for festivals and weddings.”
Bishop Alan, as he is known from his blog, reflects on the why change ringing* is a good thing in times of turmoil:
Sunday morning with brilliant sunshine amidst all the financial doom and gloom, at Winslow for the rededication of their ring of 8 bells — a considerable collaborative effort by bellringers and friends. They’ve been ringing at St Laurence for at least 400 years, but things rather declined in the nineties. During the run-up to the Millennium, Margaret Lowery raised a new band of ringers, and the frame has now been made safe and everything tuned up properly so that they’re a joy to ring as well as to hear. Manhandling the tenor bell up the tower felt like stuffing a small family car, or a hippo, up in the attic!
Change ringing (“ringing changes”) is a wonderful thing, in itself, to do in times of turmoil. You have to get things in perspective. There was life before Canary Wharf. Our society is heavily into panic and whining, but the fashion will pass. Winslow’s bells rang out the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the restoration of the Monarchy after the Civil War, Waterloo, Queen Victoria’s Death, the defeat of Hitler…
Read more and see photos here
*Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuned bells in a series of mathematical patterns called “changes”.