OS: SP155394
© Stephen McKay
Chipping Campden, St James
St James Church is in the Northeast of this small market town of Chipping Campden at the junction of Station Road and Church Street. I managed to park on Church Street (a one-way street) a little way past the Church.
The ringing room is reached by climbing a stone spiral staircase whose entrance is from outside the tower on the South side. The steps have quite a big rise and the radius of the spiral is smaller than I expected for such a big tower. The tower is 120' tall so be prepared for a climb. Bells #5, #7 and #8 are tricky to raise and a likely to go up "the wrong way".
2009-06-26
I visited for the first time on Friday 26th June 2009 to join their regular weekly practice. There were 9 of us in total. We started by ringing up the front 6 and I rang up bell #4 which went fine. I was intrigued to see that they checked that bell #5 had gone up correctly and even more surprised to see the effort taken to ring up bells #7 and the Tenor, two people started each bell before someone completred ringing them up. I still cannot ring any methods on 8 but did have a busy evening. I rang the Treble for a Touch of Grandsire Triples and then the Tenor for a Touch of Stedman Triples. Then just for me, we rang a Touch of Plain Bob Minor on the back six. I was quite pleased with this and was not aware of any problems though the slow pace may have helped. I ended up trying a Touch of Plain Bob Triples which did not go as well as I would have hoped but I did muddle my way through to the end.
2019-09-14 [ expand ]
I returned on Saturday 14th September 2019 as the 4th tower [1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th] of the Welford on Avon ringers 2019 Tour.
I started by ringing bell #5 for Stedman Triples. I rang bell #7 covering (768) for Grandsire Doubles an the Tenor covering for Grandsire Triples and finished by ringing bell #5 for Rounds & Call Changes.
The Bells
The tower has a ring of 8 bells with a tenor weighing 22-1-18 in E♭. Dove's Guide includes details of the bells at St James and more information is provided by the Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association of Church Bell Ringers.
