OS: SO834515
Powick, St Peter
St Peter, the Parish Church of Powick is situated down a short lane just off the B4424 road to Upton. It is set in a large churchyard and the tower is a large solid square affair which provides plenty of room for ringing. The ringing room is accessed from a door in the north side of the tower and up a fairly narrow stone spiral staircase of 40 steps. While the ringing room is large and provides plenty of room for ringing the 6 bells the room also contains a large clock mechanism.
2007-04-18
I visited for the first time on Wednesday 18th April 2007 and was made very welcome. There were only five of us but that meant I was ringing all night. Before ringing could commence the first task was winding the clock! This is a heavy set of bells and with only five of us we rang the front 5 bells leaving the tenor alone. I rang bell #4 up and down and for some rounds. I have never rung any methods of 5 bells before so things got interesting. On bell #4 I also rang Plain Hunt on 5. Plain hunt on 5 with only 5 bells took me a while to get right. Part of the problem is my inexperience which in this case led me to assume that after finishing a course we would go back into rounds. However, in Powick the method continues until someone says to finish! We then rang a method I'd not even heard of let alone rung -- Single Court. I made my contribution by ringing on the two bells that do not do any "work" i.e. the treble and tenor (bell #5). This went fairly well considering I do not know the method and had to do everything by rope sight! I was also invited to chime the tenor, it was hard work getting such a large bell moving!
Once again ringing in a different tower was good experience and I tried things I've never done before.
2010-03-18
I visited on Thursday 18th March 2010 for the "Two Hundred and Fourtyfifth Mid-week Outing" of the Four Shires Guild of Bell Ringers. Since this was not my first visit I settled for ringing just the once on bell #3 for a touch of Bob Minor.
The Bells
The tower has a ring of 6 bells with a tenor weighing 19-1-9 in E♭. I did not get all the details of the bells because I spent all night ringing! I'll have to go back again and get the history. There is quite a mix of dates and founders for the bells. Bells #1 and #4 were cast in 1705 by Abraham Rudhall I. Bells #2, #3 and #5 were recast in 1910 by Mears and Stainbank. The tenor was recast in 1833 by Thomas Mears (which originally weighed 22-1-23).
Dove's Guide includes details of the bells at St Gabriel and additional information is provided by the Worcestershire & Districts Change Ringing Association. No information on the bells inscriptions was to be found in the tower.
