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.
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On Saturday 12th July, St Andrew’s bell ringers took part in the Essex Association striking competition finals at Sandon, near Chelmsford.
There were ten teams from all over Essex taking part and the standard of ringing was very high as it is every year.
Each team rang 240 changes of their chosen method which took about seven minutes. We were the first to ring and were pleased with our performance containing very few errors. The judges commented later that we ‘made a confident start’ and ‘set the tone for the day.’
We were delighted to finish in third place which is our best achievement in this event for about 30 years.
Our relatively inexperienced team rang as follows:
Marianne Hayward – Treble
Carys Hayward – 2
Michelle Stephenson – 3
Nick Allen – 4
Clive Stephenson – 5
Mark Lendon – Tenor
Congratulations to all our ringers especially Carys Hayward who took part in this competition for the very first time, aged 15.
The photograph below shows our ringers in the order they rang.
Thursday 8th May 2025 was the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (VE Day). Hitler had already committed suicide and the German forces surrendered on 7th May 1945 after nearly six years of war. This led to peace in Europe and many people took to the streets to erect British flags and light bonfires. Winston Churchill declared 8th May 1945 a national holiday. Many hosted street parties and a crowd of 100,000 people gathered outside Buckingham Palace and The Mall.
During the war, bell ringing was banned from June 1940, with bells only to be rung in the event of a German invasion. Churchill did however authorise ringing after the El Alamein victory in 1942 and it was allowed on Christmas Day that year. The ban was lifted in 1943 and there were enough bell ringers to ring on VE Day 1945.This tradition has continued over the years with all major milestones celebrated with the ringing of bells. The 80th anniversary, however, was the last major milestone where a number of WW2 veterans were still alive to share their memories. This gave significant importance to the occasion and at St Andrew’s we joined other ringers around the country to ring the bells on 8th May 2025 at 6.30pm.
The photograph shows the bell ringers that took part in the national event.
The occasion was also marked with a quarter peal on 8th May and a full three-hour peal on 9th May, both shown below:
On Saturday 3rd May, the sun was shining as our full coach of 51 ringers and friends left St Andrew’s for our journey to Surrey.
It took just over an hour to reach our first stop in Ashtead, an unspoilt town with plenty of interest for non-ringers. The 8 bells here were enjoyable to ring and well managed by our young ringers, Ellen & Jamie, as they did throughout the day. They rang well to Call Changes as did John & Michelle to Cambridge Major.
Our next church in Leatherhead had 10 bells in an attractive setting overlooking the downs.
Here it was Carys’ & James’ turn to ring well to a course of Bob Caters.
Our lunch stop in Thames Ditton was an old historical pub once used by King Henry VIII on his journey to Hampton Court Palace. We enjoyed our lunch in the sunshine on the banks of the River Thames.
After lunch we rang in the busy town of Esher close to Sandown racecourse before moving on to the 8 bells of Epsom Common. The church here is surrounded by woodland and Marianne & Paul rang some well-struck Superlative Major.
Our final stop in Epsom town centre had 10 bells and Tony organised some successful Stedman Caters for Alex, Jan & Michelle, all ringing it for the first time.
It was then a short drive for our evening meal at a venue overlooking Epsom racecourse and downs before our journey home after a full and successful day.
The second extended piece of ringing was a date touch on Christmas Eve. This was 2024 changes to celebrate Christmas 2024 and took about one hour and 15 minutes to complete. Full details as follows:
The Ladies Guild is a national organisation whose aim is to support and encourage all women bell ringers to reach their full potential. Much of the country is covered by eight Districts, each of which arranges a programme of ringing activites at towers in their area. Several members of the Eastern Division of the Ladies Guild came to St Andrew’s for their final ring of the year and were joined by some of our own bellringers for an enjoyable two-hour ring on the morning of Saturday 16 November 2024.
The photo shows the lady ringers in the ringing gallery.
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).
