LEBRF Open Tower Day Report

The 2024 Guild Open Tower Day held on Saturday, 17th August in support of the Guild’s Llewellyn Edwards Bell Restoration Fund was a great success and raised a total of £1,374.40.

Organised by Dorchester Branch Ringing Master and Secretary, Paul and Jayne Cottingham, with help from their enthusiastic team of volunteers, the day featured ringing in sixteen towers in total – mostly sixes but also including one five at Sydling St Nicholas, a ten at Charminster and three eights.

The morning tour concluded at St Peter’s, Dorchester and all who rang there agreed that Thomas Hardy’s critique of the nineteenth century rehanging mentioned in a recent article was harsh and unwarranted!

The day finished at the magnificent Sherborne Abbey, giving ringers a chance to experience the wonderful climb to the historic ringing chamber and to ring on the heaviest eight in the world with a tenor weighing just over two-and-a-half tons (46 hundredweight).

Visitors travelled from around the country including as far as Manchester and Yorkshire to join us for the day as well as the event being enjoyed by many of our own members.  We were especially gratified by the number of relatively new ringers who joined us and we’ve added some of their comments below.

Plans are well underway for next year’s Open Tower Day which will be held on Saturday, 16th August 2025 and will be organised by the West Dorset Branch. We want to build on participation of our own ringers because as well as a great day out it is a really great opportunity to build confidence and experience on different bells.

Just a quick note to say thank you for yesterday’s open day (my first “Tower grab”). I had a lovely time cruising round Dorset on my motorbike in the sunshine and all the Tower Captains and colleagues were friendly and helpful.

My highlight was being able to ring the Tenor at Sherborne Abbey, although I’m afraid to say that I initially fumbled it!  Please pass on my gratitude to the team at Sherborne for helping me at the time and allowing me to continue afterwards. It absolutely made my day.

Harry Lauder – Zeals

What a grand day out that was!
Please pass on my thanks – the organisation was fantastic and a gold medal definitely needs to go to the tower relay team who were always one step ahead of us feckless ringers.   I’m sure we were probably the least experienced of those who rang, but you and the team really made us feel part of it all.
Brilliant!

Elizabeth Ferguson – Shipton Gorge

Thank you so much for such a well organized, fun and easy to navigate around open tower day, I have the confidence now to do another on my own !

Chris Brackston – Hereford

Just to say that Saturday’s ringing was brilliant.
Really well organised and a complete mixture of towers.

I can’t wait for next year.

Katie Smith – Silton

What a GREAT DAY out Emma, David and I had yesterday,  visiting all the towers on the Tower Grab tour ( we made 14) lovely churches and met other nice ringers. Thank you to all involved in organising the tour and please pass on how much we enjoyed it.

Dawn Head – Hazelbury Bryan/Mappowder

The Trustees of the LEBRF would like to extend their grateful thanks to the churches for opening their towers in support of our fund raising day, and to all the volunteers who supported us by manning the towers and ensured the smooth running of the day.

Andy Waring
Chairman of Trustees