On Monday 16th September listen out for the bells of St Barnabas’s church between 10 and 1pm. A visiting team of ringers will be attempting to ring a full peal of the 6 bells we have in the church. This is a relatively unusual event for Peasemore and happens only a handful of times a year and worth stopping for a few minutes to listen to if you hear them when you’re out.
A full peal is basically a sequence of bells which rings every possible combination without repeating or pausing and generally done from memory without sheet music. If you listen to them you should notice they’re constantly changing their order as they play. (you also know if they stop then someone’s probably gone wrong which is a bit gutting if you’re an hour into the sequence as they have to start again from the beginning)
For the mathematically minded the number of combinations of bells is Factorial 6 (6x5x4x3x2x1) which means they’ll be ringing 720 unique combinations of the bells, without repetition, this will take around a couple of hours of constant ringing (depending on how closely they ring them)
P.S. If you’re interested in learning to ring or just coming along to watch some ringing, Mike Head and the team are always looking for new members. Practice is 19:30 every week on a Thursday at the church. Have a chat with Mike Head or drop an email to ringing@peasemore.org.uk if you’re interested and we’ll arrange for you to have a try
