Outing Report 2006
The Great Isle of Wight Visit By Paul Robinson
Never has such an enthusiastic and cheerful band of ringers been heard at Bosham. The morning of Saturday 24th June 2006 was bright and sunny as an eclectic group of ringers from Pagham and Westbourne trooped into the church to ring for the wedding. The Bosham ringers, meanwhile, had boarded the traditional minibus to inflict their particular brand of ringing on the residents of the Isle of Wight. For most of us this was unknown territory. Only the second Bosham outing in more years than could be remembered and again we were to tackle some eight bell rings. As last year we were fortunate in having our number bolstered by ringers from Portsea, Stoughton and Westbourne; particularly helpful in the rings of eight. On arrival, local knowledge allowed us to find an excellent coffee shop in Ryde (parking was fun!) whilst waiting for our appointed time at All Saints. This is a 26cwt ring of eight and was to be the biggest challenge of the day for some of us. Sarah was laughed at for having difficulty pulling off the tenor which later led to a lasting memory of Jane dangling from the rope unable to move it at all! Cries of ‘bounce it off the stay’ were to no avail. We did manage some Grandsire triples on what surely must be the finest sounding ring of bells in the area.
Shanklin’s bells (St Saviour-on-the-Hill, 8 x 18cwt) were unringable for many years due to concerns about the tower’s structure. Eventually minds were changed and minor work carried out and the bells have happily been ringing again for some years now. These were possibly more of a challenge than even Ryde for some of our team; the ropes caused some problems and handling the bells was not as easy as we initially thought. We did make a more than passable effort at annoying the holiday-makers and we haven’t had any rude letters yet. Possibly the most enjoyable ring of the day was at St Andrew, Chale (6 x 8cwt). For most of us, cutting legs off at the knees would have helped rope control (or less drastically, shortening the ropes by Niton (St John the Baptist, 6 x 9cwt) is most charming village and many of us immediately wanted to sell up and move to live there. The journey that day had taken us though some of the most picturesque parts of the Island. The sun shone all day which made the whole experience worthwhile. The ringing chamber at Niton is quite compact and the sound was funnelled in such a way that it can best be described as if ringing in a bathroom. I’m not sure which of our ringers has experience of this and it’s probably better not to speculate either but it was a good description. Again we were able to ring Kent along with a whole range of other offerings to suit the whole band.
We finished the day at the Fishbourne Inn whilst
waiting for our ferry back to ‘England’. I would direct anyone wishing to ring on the Isle of Wight to Steve Noyes’ excellent website, which has details of all ringable towers.
www.noyes.org.uk/index.htm Thank you to all those who helped to make the day such a fun experience.
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St George’s Arreton’s bells (6 x 8cwt) have been rehung, retuned and in one case replaced since I last rang there regularly. What used to be an ‘interesting’ ring, from both sound and ‘go’ point of view has been transformed beyond belief. Bosham aspires to great heights when it comes to methods and Kent was the latest method to fall victim at Arreton. Saying ‘go’ is easy but when does it finish? This was a delightful tower to ring at and was followed by an excellent lunch at the adjacent White Lion. Only a small amount of damage was caused to the fence by the minibus and the landlady generously agreed to overlook it.
a foot!). These bells really sound very pleasant and rang easily. Again Kent was achieved and all of us had a very good ring. I met our contact here for the first time, having only spoken to her by telephone for the last fifteen or so years and Lyn was able to point out many historical features in this very interesting country church. Throughout the day, it had been commented on that I seemed to know everyone on the Isle of Wight – not helped by seeing a primary school friend on the back of a steam lorry outside.
