Welcome to the home of the Hornchurch Bell Ringers. Please take a look around to find out more about the art of bellringing and what the ringers get up to at St. Andrew's.
Learn to Ring
Interested in learning to ring church bells? All ages and welcome.
On Saturday 21st September 2024, St Andrew’s bell ringers entered a team in the District Call Change Competition at Leytonstone church.
Each team of six ringers had three minutes practise to get used to a different set of bells.
This was followed by five to eight minutes of competition ringing. The order of the bells was changed regularly and the accuracy of the striking assessed by two judges sitting in the churchyard.
Our team rang very well and was placed first out of the six teams that took part.
Ethan receives the trophy from the judges
The winning team of Clive, Jane, Michelle, James, Ethan & Mark outside Leytonstone church
Saturday 14th September 2024 was a warm and sunny day as the bell ringers headed to Suffolk for our second coach outing of the year.
After a drive of just over an hour, we arrived in Bures, a village with the River Stour defining the border between Essex and Suffolk. Here the bells are heavy and hung in an anti-clockwise circle but we rang well, finishing with Lincolnshire Surprise Major.
Our next stop was for four hours in Sudbury. This allowed ample time for non-ringers to look round whilst the ringers could ring at two churches with lunch in-between.
The first church (St Gregory) has 8 bells that have been recently restored and rehung by Taylor’s Bell Foundry in 2022. The project cost £60,000 and was spearheaded by Pauline Brown, a previous Hornchurch ringer. This was one of the best rings of the day. We rang a touch of Stedman Triples and a course of Bob Major with James and Carys on the treble and 2nd respectively.
The second church in Sudbury (All Saints) were heavy and difficult to ring. It took a while to get used to the bells but we did manage a couple of methods and people commented how nice the bells sounded.
After Sudbury, the non-ringers were dropped in Lavenham for two hours whilst the ringers visited Edwardstone before returning to Lavenham.
Edwardstone were an easy-going ring of 6 bells with the ringing successfully organised by Marianne. Jamie and Ellen rang the 2nd to some well struck Call Changes whilst the more experienced ringers rang Cambridge Minor.
Lavenham church stands on the top of a hill and with a tower 138 feet high, lays claim to being the highest village church tower in Britain. It is visible from miles around.
The bells are also special; heavy but quite easy to ring with a beautiful sound. This enabled our less experienced ringers to enjoy their best ring of the day which was well organised by Tony Bloomfield, giving everyone a good ring.
A short drive to our evening meal venue made a great end to the day with excellent food and company.
Our thanks must go to John and Jonathan for a very well organised day.
Andrew and Clive pulling up the tenor at All Saints, Sudbury
Outside Lavenham Church
Organisers John and Jonathan outside Edwardstone, with Jamie
On Saturday 29th June 2024, St Andrew’s bell ringers represented our district in the Essex Striking Competition at Great Easton.
We were competing against ten other teams from all over Essex. Each team rang 240 changes of their chosen method and were judged on the accuracy of their striking.
Our team rang well and finished in 6th place out of 11 teams with an accuracy score of 75%.
Well done to our successful team of James, Michelle, Marianne, Nick, Clive & Mark shown in the photo below.
On Sunday 23rd June 2024, St Andrew’s bell ringer Tina Gornall celebrated her 70th birthday. Thiswas an opportunity for the bell ringers to mark the occasion by ringing a quarter peal for Tina.
It was also a chance for young bell ringer Carys Hayward to attempt and succeed in ringing her first quarter peal. The changes were conducted by her mother Marianne and Carys effortlessly rang her bell for 45 minutes without stopping.
Carys’ godfather, Jeremy, was also able to give his support, travelling all the way from Kent to take part.
Congratulations to Tina (aged 70) and Carys (aged 14).
On Saturday 18th May 2024, 45 ringers and friends from St Andrew’s enjoyed a coach trip to North Sussex and Surrey.
Our first stop was a drive of 1.5 hours to the town of East Grinstead. Here the ringers madea nice sound on all 12 bells whilst the non –ringers visited the museum next door dedicated to wartime plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe.
At our next stop, Balcombe, a lighter ring of 8 bells allowed some more advanced ringing in a pretty and recently restored church.
Our lunch stop at Warnham was a pub conveniently opposite the church in a picturesque setting.
Here the non-ringers had an extended lunch whilst listening to the recently augmented ring of 10.
In the afternoon we visited an anti-clockwise ring in Rudgwick before our final stop at Cranleigh; arguably the nicest sounding bells of the day.
For our dinner in Cranleigh we had a pub restaurant to ourselves with excellent food and service before our pleasant journey home.
The D-Day operation of June 6th, 1944 was the largest invasion in history which would ultimately defeat Nazi Germany and end the Second World War.
On the 80th anniversary of this day, it was more than fitting that the St Andrew’s bell ringers should ring out to mark the occasion.
Former Hornchurch Ringing Master Frank Gant was involved in the Normandy landings of 1944.
On D-Day, Frank was in command of a tank landing craft which, on approaching the beach in Normandy, lost its rudder on an underwater obstruction. He managed to reach the beach, however, offload the tanks and return to England without a rudder.
He steered the boat by varying the speeds of the twin propellers and received official recognition for this remarkable feat.
Today’s bell ringers met at 9.30am on Thursday 6th June to ring before and after the Communion Service where Mark gave thanks for our country’s role in the liberation of Western Europe.
Our ringing included a quarter peal shown in detail below along with the ringers that took part:
On Sunday 4th February 2024, the bell ringers celebrated the licensing of Marianne Hayward as Associate Priest with a quarter peal in the evening before choral evensong.
Marianne was able to ring in the quarter peal as shown in the summary below:
