The Washington Post reports on a wonderful mix of Anglican rite and adolescent verve that is the Whitechapel Guild, the group of change ringers at the all-girls National Cathedral School.
At one end of the 20-foot rope is Tessa Lightfoot, a 13-year-old American teenager topping the scales at 90 pounds. At the other, directly above her head, is a British-made bronze bell weighing more than a quarter of a ton.
Together, they make beautiful . . . silence.
Tessa heaves gamely up and down on the rope as the 627-pound bell, swinging madly through 360 degrees of arc, makes not so much as a ding. During ringing class in the bell tower of Washington National Cathedral, the clappers are stopped as a courtesy to nearby residents.
“We don’t want to drive the neighbors crazy,” explains instructor Quilla Roth as eight middle-schoolers line up to take their tugs behind her. “Especially when they’re just learning, we don’t like to sound horrendous.”
It’s an unusual elective – in several ways. The bells make no noise, and the ropes are hauled by bubbly little Quasimodos in skinny jeans and Aeropostale hoodies…
…Twice a week, groups of middle- and high-schoolers from the all-girls National Cathedral School on the Cathedral’s Northwest grounds negotiate a route of hidden elevators and spiral stairs up the 300-foot Gloria in Excelsis bell tower, which boasts some of Washington’s most stunning views. In a chamber beneath the carillon bells, 10 ropes hang through holes in the ceiling, each connected to bells ranging, in order of pitch, from 608 pounds to 3,588 pounds.