Rounds
The home row. Treble to tenor, highest note to lowest, rung in the order 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8.
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8 changes / min
St Anselm's Tower · Founded 1684
Eight bells.
Endless changes.
Pull a rope and hear mathematics travel through oak, bronze and air.
Enter the ringing chamber↓- Possible rows
- 40,320
- Strike gap
- 430ms
- Tenor weight
- 798kg
RING THE CHANGES
Hands to ropes.
Choose a method, arm the bronze, then follow bell no. 2 along the blue line. Or interrupt the band: every sally can be pulled by hand.
Pull any sally to hear its bell. The method will continue from the next place.
ROUNDS
Blue line: no. 2
ROW 011 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Audio is generated in your browser from five tuned bronze partials. No recording is used.
We do not play a tune.
We ring an order becoming another order.
8! = 40,320
One pull turns a bell through a full circle. The ringer holds its balance, then lets gravity write the next stroke.
The method library
Three ways through
the same eight voices.
Plain Hunt Major
Every bell hunts from front to back and home again, moving one place at each change.
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16-row course
Grandsire Triples
A five-lead principle on seven working bells, with the tenor covering steadily behind.
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72 changes / lead
The St Anselm eight
Cast across three centuries, rehung together in an English oak frame in 1998.
Gabriel
Treble · G4-1-03Whitechapel, 1936Faith
F4-3-18John Taylor, 1998Hope
E♭5-1-06Abel Rudhall, 1742Charity
D5-3-24Mears & Stainbank, 1889St Agnes
C7-0-11Abel Rudhall, 1742St Hugh
B♭8-2-07Joseph Smith, 1711Mary
A♭11-0-19John Taylor, 1998Anselm
Tenor · E♭15-2-14Joseph Smith, 1711Weights are given in hundredweight, quarters and pounds. The tenor weighs 798 kg.
From the tower captain's book
Listen before you pull.
“The bell tells you where it is. A taut rope, a quiet shoulder, eyes around the circle. Do less, and do it exactly.”
Margaret ValeTower Captain since 2016
Going up
Controlled pulls increase the swing until the bell balances mouth-up. This is raising, not ringing.
Look to
The conductor's warning. Catch the sally, settle your feet and watch the treble ringer.
That's all
The touch is complete. Ring rounds cleanly, then wait for “stand” before setting the bell.
Words heard
up the tower
A small vocabulary for your first practice.
- Sally
- The tufted red and white wool grip woven into the rope for the handstroke.
- Backstroke
- The return pull made on the rope's plain tail after the sally rises.
- Stay
- A slim ash bar that prevents the bell turning beyond its balance.
- Touch
- A performance longer than a course but shorter than a quarter peal.
- Dodging
- Two bells briefly exchange places, then exchange back before hunting on.
- Going up
- The call made before the band raises the bells ready for ringing.
Press Enter or Space, click, or drag the rope downward and release it to sound the tenor bell.
Thursday evenings · 19:30
Your first pull
starts with silence.
St Anselm's welcomes curious listeners and new ringers. Climb 43 worn stone steps. We will meet you at the blue door.
Next open practice
17 July
19:15 tower tour
19:30 handling lesson
20:15 tea in the ringing room