Bells and Bell Ringing

CONTACT:  Tower Captain Freda Parker
TELEPHONE:  07732 864076
EMAIL:  via Contact page (choose Bells and Bell Ringing from the subject dropdown menu)

The St. Laurence-In-Thanet Bells and Bell Ringing is open to anyone ages 10 and over. No costs are involved until you are able to ring safely. 

 Practice night every Tuesday from 19:30 (7:30pm) to 21:00 (9:00pm) except the Tuesday of Holy Week.

                     Every third Saturday of the month there is a muffled bell practice for beginners and learners, more experienced ringers are also welcome.

                     Sunday service ringing from 09:00 to 10:00 weekly.

 

  
WILL YOU BECOME THE NEXT BELLRINGER?

  

 

St Laurence in Thanet Church is looking for people to learn the ancient craft of full circle church bell ringing.

 

 

Open to anyone aged between 10 and 100. Come along and make new friends and learn something new.

INTERESTED?

Contact Freda Parker – Tower Captain

On 07732 864076

 

 

 

 

_{^{The Bells are Back}}

_{^{On Pentecost Sunday, 23rd May, the St Laurence Bell Ringers were able to ring for the 10:00 service. This was the first ringing in 2021 and the bells sounded lovely. Several members of the congregation commented how wonderful it was to hear the bells again.
 
The bells will be ringing every Sunday morning now and it is hoped from mid June we will also get back to practice in the tower.}}

 

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_{^{Bell ringing in unusual times}}

_{^{The COVID pandemic has brought many challenges to all of us, especially all the groups with in our churches and parish.}}

_{^{The bell ringers at St Laurence have been affected as much as any. In March 2020 our world of Sunday service ringing, weekly practices at our own tower and at other churches around Thanet, outings, meetings and wedding ringing all came to a sudden halt.}}

_{^{As well as ringing, where we let the community know something was happening at church or in the wider secular community, we missed the exercise of it, the camaraderie of fellow ringers, people to talk to who understand things like bobs, singles, course bells, touches, raising and lowering.}}

_{^{We then discovered Ringing Room an on line virtual ringing chamber where along with skype we could continue to meet up weekly on a Tuesday evening to “ring” bells. This was in itself challenging, there is the on line side, just getting everyone there, to be able to see them and hear them as well as each person being able to ring their bell.}}

_{^{Once this was accomplished we started with very basis stuff, rounds and plain hunt. Personally I found ringing way this was tricky, I am totally unable to ring (press a key) with one hand and conduct (pressing another key) with the other hand. However over time we have persevered, aided by lots of laughter and the odd beer (you certainly cannot have a beer in the tower) we can now ring methods with calls and our best achievement to date has been Stedman Doubles.}}

_{^{We all look forward to being back in the tower doing what we love most ringing real bells.}}

_{^{Below is a screen shot of what the virtual ringing room looks like}}