Welford-on-Avon, St Peter

The Parish Church of St Peter in Welford-on-Avon is in the West of the Village just a couple of hundred yards from the River Avon. I parked just opposite the Church in Church Street.

I visited for the first time on Monday 9^th June 2008 after being invited by the Tower Captain while ringing with the Four Shires Guild of Bell Ringers at Bourton-on-the-Hill. The ringing room is light and airy with windows high up on all 4 sides of the tower. Initially there were only four of us plus someone who had come along to learn ringing for the first time. We rang up the front four bells with me on bell #4. We then rang Plain Bob Minimus, something I had never attempted before, and I rang on both bells #3 and #4. Someone else arrived and we rang Plain Bob Minimus again but with a Tenor. This was an interesting experience, I have just about got comfortable with Plain Bob Doubles and I am beginning to see how the Plain Bob method evolves with an increasing number of bells.

Eventually a sixth ringer turned up. We rang some Plain Hunt for practice but to make it "interesting" some "wrinkles" were introduced. The objective of the "wrinkles" was to encourage ringers to count places and use rope sight rather than learn the sequence of bells to be followed. This "wrinkle" was achieved by assigning a different number to a bell, for example bell #4 would ring in third place in rounds and bell #3 would ring in fourth place. This has no real affect in Plain Hunt if you are counting places, but it will mess things up if you are following a sequence of bells.

In recent times I have been trying to get to grips with ringing more than six bells but this evenings practice was enjoyable and still provided interesting challenges.

The Bells

The tower has a ring of 8 bells with a tenor weighing 9-3-01. Dove's Guide includes details of the bells at St Peter. For some reason Dove's Guide does not include information on bell inscriptions so they are shown in the following table.

Bell	Note	Diameter	Weight	Inscription
1	Dove's Guide to the bells at St Peter			Constance
2				Rose
3				Gabriel
4				Rudhall
5				Timothy
6				Harold
7				Robert
Tenor				Peter

While geographically Welford-on-Avon is in Warwickshire, the Parish Church of St Peter is in the Diocese of Gloucester and is affiliated to The Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association of Church Bell Ringers.