St Andrew’s bells have been rung for many Royal occasions over the years.

When 2nd May was arranged as the date to ring a peal for the Royal Birth, we thought that we were going to be too early but when we assembled just before 10.00am, we knew that the Duchess of Cambridge was already in labour.

When we finished the peal 3 hours and 8 minutes later, we were delighted to discover that the new Royal Princess had arrived at 8.34am and that we had probably been the first church in the country to celebrate this event with bells!

Congratulations go to our treble ringer, Ros Skipper, who rang her first peal at the first attempt and to Nick Allen who rang his first peal on an ‘inside’ (more difficult) bell.

Full details of the peal are:

Non Association
Hornchurch, Essex
St Andrew
Saturday, 2 May 2015 in 3h 8 (18–0–0 in E♭)
5056 Plain Bob Major
Composed by J R Pritchard
1 Ros C Skipper
2 Lionel S Woods
3 Christopher C M Pain
4 Philip H Denton
5 John A Hall
6 Christopher J Cooper
7 Nicholas M Allen
8 Clive J Stephenson (C)
Rung to celebrate the birth of HRH Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana on this day, a daughter to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
First peal – 1. First inside – 7.