The York Colleges Guild of Bellringers
Tower Bell Ringing
We ring tower (church) bells every Sunday evening during term time, usually at St. Lawrence (8 bells) or the Spurriergate Centre (6 bells). The advantage of not having a 'home tower' as such is that we get to practice on lots of different bells. Every so often, we go to a different church in or around the city, such as St. Martin-le-Grand (8 bells) or St.Wilfrid (10 bells). We also regularly jp;d joint practices with the Leeds University Society (LUSCR), in Leeds as well as in York.
Many of our members join us having already learnt how how to ring bells before they came to university, but we also teach learners from scratch. It takes 2-4 months to be able to handle a bell competently without assistance. You do not need to go to church services, or to be musical. If you are possibly interested, why not come along to one of our practices and see what we do?
After practices we usually spend the rest of the evening in a pub, generally either The Hansom Cab in Market Street, or The Rook and Gaskil on Lawrence Street.
As well as the Sunday practices, we also ring quarter peals (about 45 minutes of continuous ringing) on most Friday evenings during term time, and periodically arrange outings to ring at churches outside of York. In addition, we generally have at least one (and usually more) social events each term.
Bell ringing is highly addictive, and many of us also ring with local bands of ringers at various other churches in the city including St Laurence, St Wilfrid and The Minster. It is possible to ring in York every day of the week apart from Saturday if you get well and truly hooked...