26: Plain Bob Doubles – the theory.

If you can treble to Grandsire Doubles, sooner or later you’ll be asked to treble to Plain Bob Doubles, and you might then want to ring it ‘inside’. Let’s find out what it is.

Like Grandsire, Plain Bob is just Plain Hunt with the occasional tweak. In Grandsire, the tweak happens at the start of the lead; in Plain Bob, it happens at the end. Plain Bob Doubles starts with a full lead of Plain Hunt then, at the very last change, to stop it coming back into rounds, a bell makes 2nds over the treble, the bells in 3-4 dodge, and the bell in 5ths stays put. This brings up the row 13524. If you do this three more times, the bells run round, giving a plain course of 40 rows, each 10 rows long. Here’s a diagram:

There is a very significant difference between Grandsire and Plain Bob:

• In a plain course of Grandsire Doubles (as you already know), all the rows are in-course. You need singles to get the out-of-course rows.
• In a plain course of Plain Bob Doubles, half the rows are in-course (the first and third leads) and half are out-of-course (the second and fourth leads). This is because every time the treble leads, three bells (including the treble) lie still; just one pair swaps (the bells dodging in 3-4), and it’s this single change which flips the rows from in-course to out-of-course, or vice-versa.

You might therefore guess that the extent of Plain Bob Doubles doesn’t need any singles, and you’d be right: it only needs bobs. In fact, producing a 120 of Bob Doubles is very straightforward. At the end of the course, instead of a bell making 2nds, a bell makes 4ths, bringing up the row 14235. The whole thing is repeated twice, running round after 120 rows.

Plain Bob is the simplest of the huge number of methods which have a 2nds place lead end and a 4ths place bob. If you’ve trebled to Bob Doubles, you’ve probably noticed the bell making 2nds over you every time you lead, except when a bob was called.

Here’s the extent described above:

Because the extent of Bob Doubles is a round block, the three bobs can be called at any three lead ends 40 changes (4 leads) apart. The extent shown above has the 5th as observation, and has bobs at the 4th, 8th and 12th lead ends. The 5th simply rings three plain courses and is unaffected by the bobs. Any of the other three bells may be called to be observation bell. You simply call a bob each time your choice of observation bell is at the back as the treble is leading. For instance, to call the 2nd observation you would need bobs at the 2nd, 6th and 10th lead ends. A useful exercise would be to write out an extent of Bob Doubles with either 2, 3 or 4 as the observation bell.

We’ll think about how to ring Bob Doubles next time.

 

25: Singles

The only thing you haven’t done yet in Grandsire Doubles is to be in 2nds or 3rds place at a single. It’s easy!

Remember that the only difference between a single and a bob is that the bells in 2nds and 3rds place lie still as the treble leads. This gives two new pieces of work:

• If the treble turns you from lead at a single, make 2nds and become the new hunt bell.
• If you’re in 3rds place at the handstroke after the single is called, make 4 blows in 3rds and go back into the front. This is commonly known as ‘long 3rds‘. A diagram should make this clear. I’ve put lines through 4 and 5 in the following true touch of 40 changes (a single at every lead end), to highlight how those bells make the 2nds and the long 3rds at the first and third lead ends:

I’ve left it to you to work out rules for singles to go with the rules for bobs at the end of the last post. Only do it if you think you need them; I think you can probably manage without. The fewer rules you try to remember, the fewer there are to muddle up or forget.

That’s everything done that you need to be able to ring any touch of Grandsire Doubles on any bell. Enjoy, and, when you’re confident, maybe it’ll be time to think about that first quarter peal…

24: Ringing a non-observation bell.

If you’ve understood everything so far, and managed to ring it successfully and confidently, then you shouldn’t have much trouble ringing any bell you like to a 60 of Grandsire Doubles. If you want to be sure of not being the observation bell, then just get hold off the 2nd or the 4th.

We could try learning a lot of rules along the lines of ‘I was going to do this, but there’s a bob so I must do that instead’, but we’re going to try a different approach.

Let’s remind ourselves how Grandsire Doubles works.

Everybody plain hunts apart from when the treble is at the front.

At a plain lead: a bell makes 3rds as the treble leaves the front, and the two bells at the back do a 4-5 dodge with each other.

At a bobbed lead: a bell makes 3rds just before the treble leads, and another bell then makes 3rds immediately after (just like a plain lead). The two bells at the back do a double 4-5 dodge with each other.

That’s pretty much all you need to know. Here are some tips:

• Check how your bell starts. Remember that, in Grandsire, the 4th and 5th start with a handstroke dodge, while the 3rd makes 3rds.
• If you turn the treble from lead (like the 2nd does at the very beginning), then you are the hunt bell, and you keep hunting until there’s a bob or a single. You’ll find that you come out of the hunt with a double 4-5 down dodge at a bob or single. If you look back at the previous post, you’ll find a diagram there that shows you exactly what the 2nd does as it comes out of the hunt with a bob at the first lead end. You haven’t done this before, so it’s worth having a close look at this bit.
• The bell making the first lot of 3rds at a bob becomes the new hunt bell. You should notice that you’re the new hunt bell when this happens, because you turn the treble from lead (see the bullet point above).
• Remember that when you go into the hunt, you stay in the hunt until there’s another call. No dodging or place-making until then, so take a rest!
• The bell making the second lot of 3rds at a bob would have done it anyway. It’s unaffected by the bob.
• Remember that all the extra things that happen at a bob happen at the handstroke after the conductor has called it. Decide if you’re near the front of the change or near the back at that point. If you’re in or below 3rds place, make 3rds. If you’re above 3rds place, double dodge.

Good luck!

If that doesn’t work, here are the rules I said I wouldn’t bother you with:

 

23: Observation bell.

Once you can ring a Plain Course of Grandsire Doubles on the 3rd, it would be useful to try it on the 4th or 5th. There’s nothing new to learn. Notice that you get a dodge out of the way right at the start, so there’s only one more dodge and a set of 3rds left (not necessarily in that order!).

The next thing to do, once you’re confident with the plain course is to ring the observation bell to a 60 or a 120. An observation bell is one which repeats the same chunk of work over and over while the other bells do the clever stuff. In Grandsire Doubles, the observation bell repeats the same two leads.

Have a look at the bobs only 60 we saw earlier. Here I’ve written it out just showing the lead heads, since we’re not particularly bothered to see all the plain-hunty bits in between:

Notice that we don’t bother writing ‘1’ at the start of each lead head when doing this. We know that the treble is at the front of each of these rows, so there’s no point writing it; to do so wouldn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

You should be able to see that every two leads, the third comes back to thirds place. That’s the bell you’ll be ringing. Every two leads, you’re going to make 3rds, just like you did at the start of the plain course. That just leads the odd-numbered leads. At the start of all of those, the 3rd is in 5ths place. That means you’ll be doing something dodgy (in fact, the same dodgy thing) every time there’s a bob. Remember that the bobbed leads are indicated by a ‘-‘.

What is this dodgy thing you need to do?

It’s time to look at the line. Here’s a touch of 20 changes (bb), so you can see what happens at the bobs:

Remember that, at a bob, two lots of  thirds are made, one just as the treble leaves the front, and an extra one for the bob, just as the treble leads. That means that, for 6 rows, the bells in 4ths and 5ths place can’t get down to the front. They’d hit the two bells making 3rds if they tried. All they can do is to stay at the back until all those 3rds are finished.

They could just lie still, but that would be very dull, so, instead, they dodge with each other. 6 rows is enough time to dodge twice, so that’s what those two bells do: they double dodge with each other. You can see the 2nd and your bell, the 3rd, doing exactly that at the first bob, just like you’re going to do when you ring your 60. Hopefully, you can see that the 2nd is double-dodging down, and the 3rd is double dodging-up. That means you’ll need to cut not just one, but two handstrokes back into 4ths place before lying behind.

Now, you could try just remembering the order of the work for your 60: 3rds, double-dodge 4-5 up. That’s simple enough. However, if you remember how Grandsire works, there’s really no need. You have just two pieces of work to do, and you’re warned of each of them by a massive clue.

• Making 3rds: just before you do that, you’ll see the treble arriving on the front (the treble ‘turns you’ from lead). You then know to make 3rds, as the treble leaves the fron, because that’s what always happens in Grandsire.
• Double dodging 4-5 up: the massive clue here is the conductor calling the bob (or single). He or she will call it a whole pull before the bob happens, while the treble is in 3rds, at handstroke, on its way down. At that point, you will be near the back of the row. You know you can’t get into the front because of the bells making 3rds, so you just do a double dodge, starting at the handstroke after the bob is called. Then, carry on hunting.

Most people try to learn the bobs in Grandsire by trying to remember lots of rules along the lines of ‘I was going to do this, but a bob has been called, so now I have to do that instead.’ It’s very easy to muddle up rules like that, so I wouldn’t try and do it that way. Instead, remember what happens at a bob: the working bells in 3rds place and below make 3rds, and the bells at the back double-dodge. So, when you hear a bob in Grandsire, just see what position you’re in at the following handstroke:

• If you’re in 3rds or below, make 3rds.
• If you’re above 3rds place, just do a double dodge and then carry on hunting.

These two simple rules, based on understanding how the method works, apply to Grandsire Triples, Caters and Cinques as well.

Once you can ring a 60 observation, you can ring 120 as well, because the singles are the same as the bobs for everyone except the bells in 2nds and 3rds place. For the time being, you don’t need to think about the difference between a bob and a single. The double dodging at the back is identical for each.

Finally, when you can ring 3rd observation, try ringing 5th observation. It’s the same touch as before, alternating bobs and plain leads, but starting with the plain lead instead. Touches of Grandsire Doubles with the 2nd or 4th as observation don’t exist. You might like to think about why not.

 

22: Ringing a working bell.

Once you’re trebling confidently to Doubles (there’s no rush!) and you’ve hunted the 2nd to a few plain courses of Grandsire, it’s time to think about ringing Grandsire Doubles on a working bell: the 3rd. The ropesight’s a bit different on the 3rd. You have to watch two bells on either side of you so, before having a go at Grandsire, just ring a few leads of Plain Hunt on 5 to get used to that.

You already know a lot about Grandsire if you’ve got this far. Let’s put that knowledge to work. We know that:

• The plain course of Grandsire Doubles is 30 rows long and consists of three leads of 10 rows each.
• The only point where it differs from Plain Hunt is at the handstroke after the treble leads. Grandsire Doubles, most of the time, is just Plain Hunt.
• The last lead of the plain course is identical to the lead of Plain Hunt on the 3rd that you’ve already practised.
• The third starts by making thirds and going in to the front. This is different from the way the third starts in Plain Hunt.

To sum up: you’re going to do very little that isn’t just plain hunting. You’re going to start differently (by making 3rds), and, after that, there are just two new things to do, called dodges. We’ll look at those next. After the second of those dodges, you’ll be into what should be a familiar lead of Plain Hunt.

Here’s what you’ve been waiting patiently for: a diagram of Grandsire Doubles, with your work on 3rd shown by a nice clear ‘blue line‘. The treble is shown, as is customary, in red, so you can see how your work relates to what the treble is doing.

 

For the moment, ignore the numbers in the circles at the start of each lead. Let’s focus on what the 3rd does. There are three ‘pieces of work‘. They are shown in red on the diagram, and are listed here:

• Make 3rds (You do this immediately at the start)
• Dodge 4-5 down (You do this at the end of the first lead)
• Dodge 4-5 up (You do this at the end of the second lead)

Let’s look carefully at the dodges. A dodge is simply a step back in the opposite direction to the way you’re going. All the dodges in Grandsire happen at handstroke.

The first dodge is a 4-5 down dodge. It’s called a down dodge because you do it as you are hunting down to the front. This is what you do:

• Lie behind as normal.
• Begin hunting down (into 4ths place).
• Hold the next handstroke back up into 5ths place (this is the dodge)
• Carry on hunting down as normal.

The second dodge is a 4-5 up dodge. It’s called an up dodge because you do it as you are hunting up to the back. This is what you do:

• Hunt all the way up to 5ths place as usual.
• Instead of lying, cut the handstroke back into 4ths place (this is the dodge)
• Now hold back up (at backstroke) into 5ths place and lie behind as normal.
• Hunt down as normal.

After this second dodge, you should find yourself in a familiar lead of Plain Hunt. The bells run round at the next lead end.

Nobody expects you to remember these ‘blow by blow’ instructions for doing a dodge. They are just a description of what you do. The important thing is to match up the instructions with what the blue line shows you. If you can do that, and keep a picture of the blue line in your mind, with a bit of practice and some help from your teacher, you’ll be fine.

It’s quite easy to muddle up the 4-5 down and 4-5 up dodges. To help avoid that:

• Study them carefully, both the blue line and the description.
• Only dodge when you have seen or heard the treble leading. If the treble’s not at the front, there can’t be any dodges due, so just keep hunting.
• Remember that each dodge only lasts for one handstroke. Everything else is plain hunt. If you make a mess of a dodge, just keep hunting. Somebody will nudge you back into the correct position.
• Remember that lying in 5ths place is a backstroke followed by a handstroke, not the other way round.
• Don’t panic!
• If in doubt: keep hunting.
• Be prepared to come back and read this post again until you have taken it all in. The step from hunting to ringing a working bell is probably the hardest thing you’ll ever need to do. Once you’ve learned (as you do in Grandsire Doubles) to make places and do dodges, you’ll be well on the way to ringing any method you can think of.

Most people learn the order of the three pieces of work (3rds, 4-5 down, 4-5 up), so you should probably do that. There’s not that much to remember! In fact, all three working bells do the same work in the same order, but starting in different positions. That’s what those big numbers in circles are for. They show you that:

• The 3rd starts by making 3rds
• The 4th starts with a 4-5 down dodge
• The 5ths starts with a 4-5 up dodge

Once you can ring the 3rd to a plain course, ringing the 4th or 5th is no harder. You just start in a different place.

All the time you are ringing the 3rd, keep an eye, or an ear, or both, on the treble, and remember that until you see or hear the treble leading, all you do is Plain Hunt. As the treble leaves the front, there is just one blow of work (either make 3rds or dodge in 4-5), and then you carry on plain hunting.

You can get better at seeing and hearing the treble by watching it, or listening to it with your eyes shut, any time you’re sitting out. Just make sure that it’s a plain method that’s being rung. The treble does something different in methods like Stedman, Kent and Cambridge.

Finally, some things to look out for which should help you:

• Once you’ve lead and hunted up for the first time, you always hunt down behind the 5th. The 5th is your course bell.
• When you dodge, there is another bell dodging with you (either the 4th or the 5th). You follow that bell twice, in consecutive handstrokes for the down dodge, and in consecutive backstrokes for the up dodge.
• When you pass the treble, the next bell will always be the 2nd (because both the treble and the 2nd are plain hunting).

Have fun!

 

21: The extent of Grandsire Doubles

Now we understand that a bobs-only (pbpbpb) 60 of Grandsire Doubles contains all the in-course rows and none of the out-of -course rows, producing an extent is simple: we introduce a single change at the very last row of the 60 to stop it coming round.  To achieve this, we simply make the bells in seconds and thirds lie still.  This puts the bells out of course, bringing up the change 13245. From that point, we repeat the 60, but with 2 and 3 swapped over. 60 changes later, a second single brings the bells round. We have a true 120.

This new call is appropriately called a single. A single in Grandsire is identical to a bob except that the bells in 2nds and 3rds lie still as the treble leads. There are two sets of thirds made at a bob; a single joins them together so that the bell making 3rds stays there for a full four blows. You can see all of this on the diagram at the end of this post, which shows the extent that I have just described.

Soon, I’ll explain how to ring a working bell to Grandsire Doubles, firstly a plain course, and then touches. For the time being, don’t worry about any of that. Instead, keep on trebling, and make sure that you understand

• how the plain course of Grandsire Doubles is constructed (it’s just Plain Hunt with thirds made as the treble leaves the front)
• how a bobbed lead is different from a plain lead (remember that extra set of thirds, made before the treble leads)
• why we need singles (it’s so we can get to the 60 out-of-course rows)
• how a single differs from a bob (2nds and 3rds are made as the treble leads)

Many people ring Grandsire Doubles without understanding any of this, but those same people are likely to make repeated mistakes because they don’t fully understand what they are doing and why. A good understanding of how methods work is a very big help when you ring them. It’s like going for a walk with a map. You’re much more likely to stay safely on the correct path if you can interpret the map accurately than if you just set off blindly, with only a vague idea of where you’re heading.

120 Grandsire Doubles: pbpbps repeated

 

20: Even and odd

Last time, we produced some touches of Grandsire Doubles using a mixture of plain and bobbed leads. Such touches are called ‘bobs only’ touches.

We had a false touch of 90:  pp-pp-pp-

We had two true touches of 60: p-p-p- and its rotation: -p-p-p

I asked you:

1. How do we know, without bothering to write it out, that the 90 must be false?
2. Do the two touches of 60 contain the same rows?

The second of these questions can also be answered without writing out all the rows.

To answer these questions (and to show how the two questions are related) we’re going to look more closely at the different rows we can produce, remembering that, on 5 bells, there are exactly 120 in total.

If you go back and look at the rows in all the touches in the last post, you’ll see something interesting: none of them contain the following rows:

21345     13245     12435     12354

Can you see what all those rows have in common? That’s right: they’ve all been produced from rounds by swapping just one adjacent pair (they’re called ‘near-misses‘).

Queens (13524) is also missing from all three touches. Queens is produced from rounds by swapping 3 adjacent pairs, maybe like this:

12345 to 13245 ( swap 2&3)  to 13254 (swap 4&5)  to 13524 (swap 2&5)

In fact, all the rows produced from rounds by swapping an odd number of adjacent pairs are missing in all three touches. Try and work out some more of these missing changes.

• Changes produced from rounds by swapping an even number of adjacent pairs are called ‘in-course‘ rows.
• Changes produced from rounds by swapping an odd number of adjacent pairs are called ‘out-of-course‘ rows.

In the same way that, when you are counting in maths, there is an equal number of odd and even numbers, in bell-ringing there are an equal number of in-course (even) rows and out-of-course (odd) rows. That means that out of the 120 changes available on 5 bells, exactly 60 must be in-course and the other 60 must be out-of-course.

In maths, if you add 2 to an even number, you get another even number. In the same way, in bellringing, if you swap 2 adjacent pairs from an in-course row, you get another in-course row.

Now, Grandsire Doubles using only bobs and plain leads always swaps 2 pairs between rows, so it can only ever produce in-course rows. That means that:

1. Any touch of Grandsire Doubles longer than 60 rows and using bobs only must be false. That, of course, includes our bobs-only touch of 90.
2. Any true, bobs-only touch of 60 Grandsire Doubles must contain the same rows as any other, because it must include all the available in-course rows.

We’ve answered our two questions!

To produce 120 of Grandsire Doubles, we need to introduce the idea of a ‘single’. You can probably guess what a single does. There’s a big clue in its name!

 

 

19: Bobs in Grandsire Doubles.

It’s time to set about getting more rows from Grandsire Doubles. This next bit’s pretty technical, but stick with it!

We need to introduce a new idea, something which stops the bells running round after only 30 rows. This new idea is called a bob.

Remember how Grandsire has a bell making 3rds just after the treble leads. At a bob in Grandsire, a bell also makes 3rds just before the treble leads.

Let’s call a bob at the end of the third lead of the plain course, just before the bells would run round. That brings up the row 15324. You can see it on the diagram below, at the bottom of the first column. A bob is shown by a dash to the right of the rows.

Notice how, at the bob, the 5th makes 3rds just before the treble leads. Notice also that the 5th takes over the role that the 2nd had in the plain course (to plain hunt all the time).  The 5th becomes the new hunt bell until the next bob, and the 2nd takes over from it as a working bell.

We can now ring another plain course, but starting from the row 15324. We’ll need another bob three leads later, otherwise we’ll be back to 15324. The bob at the end of the sixth lead (the bottom of the second column) brings up 14352. The 4th goes into the hunt. Three more leads with a bob at the end brings us back to rounds.

Using ‘p’ to represent a normal, plain lead and ‘-‘ to represent a bobbed lead, we have the following touch of 90 rows:

pp-pp-pp-

There’s only one thing wrong with this touch: it’s false. See if you can see where the repeated rows occur.

Ok. What if we tried having only bobbed leads?

Now we get a true touch. Unfortunately, at just 20 rows (two leads) long, it’s even shorter than the plain course. Here it is:

Let’s try alternate plain and bobbed leads, like this:

p-p-p-

Yes! That works, and gives us 60 true changes. Here they are:

This touch, like most touches, is a ‘round block‘. Like a circle, its beginning joins up with its end. Once you get to the end, you could just carry on and do it all again if you wanted to.

A useful thing about a true round block is this:

• you can start and end at any row and it will still be true.

Now we probably don’t want to start in the middle of a lead, but we could start our 60 of Grandsire with a bobbed lead instead of a plain lead and ring this:

-p-p-p

You might like to write it out and check that it has 60 true changes. Now here’s a question:

• Are they the same 60 changes as we got from the other version of this touch?       (You’ll remember that the first version started with a plain lead:  p-p-p- )

A related question is this (though it probably isn’t obvious how it’s related):

• How do I know, without bothering to write it out, that any touch of 90 Grandsire Doubles which uses only plain leads and bobbed leads (like the one above) must be false?

I’ll be impressed if you can answer that question!

I haven’t forgotten that I haven’t yet talked about how to ring Grandsire Doubles on an inside bell. That’ll come soon. In the meantime, keep doing lots of trebling, and start to look at what the other bells are doing around you. When you’re trebling to Grandsire:

• Can you see the bell(s) making 3rds at the lead end?
• Can you see, or hear, which bell is leading when you’re at the back of the change?
• As you hunt down, can you see which bell is hunting down immediately in front of you (your course bell)?
• After a bob or a single, can you see which is the new hunt bell?
• I haven’t talked about singles yet. Can you see what happens at a single?
• Can you see or hear which bell has gone wrong if there’s a mistake?
• Can you keep the treble in the right place even if there’s a fire out going on? A good steady treble ringer who stays calm under fire is a real asset to any band.

 

18: Peals, quarter peals and Dove’s Guide.

At 5040 rows, the extent of Triples is a reasonable challenge, taking about 3 hours to ring and being equivalent in terms of effort to something like running a half-Marathon. Of course, the physical effort depends on the size and ease of the bells you are ringing. The mental effort needed varies enormously according to your level of experience and the difficulty of the method you are ringing.

Exactly 5040 changes rung on 7 or fewer bells is called a peal. To ring a peal on 6 bells or fewer, you’re going to need to repeat some changes. A peal of Minor is 7 extents (remember, 7 ✖️ 720 = 5040). A peal of Doubles needs 42 extents. To ring a different method for each extent in a peal of Doubles is quite a mental challenge.

On 8 bells and above, a peal is defined as 5000 or more changes.

A quarter peal is a nice length to ring for a service, on an outing, or for a special occasion. Quarter peals on 7 bells or fewer must contain at least 1260 rows, whereas, on 8 bells or more, you can get away with only 1250. Quarter peals take somewhere around 45 minutes to ring.

If you’re sharp with the maths, you’ll have noticed that a quarter peal of Minor doesn’t need two full extents (1440 rows). You only need 1260,  so one 720 and a touch of at least 540 will do. A touch is a piece of ringing based on plain courses but using calls to get the right length. You’ll learn about the commonest calls – bobs and singles – when we look at how to ring an extent of Grandsire Doubles.

For a quarter peal of Doubles, you need 10 120s and a touch of 60 rows.

I’ve simplified these definitions a bit. These days, things are a bit more complicated and a bit more flexible, but I wouldn’t worry about that just yet. When you get round to ringing your first quarter, a big milestone in any ringer’s career, your conductor will know what to do.

Of course, it’s not compulsory to ring peals or quarter peals. Some ringers never ring any of either, and that’s fine. However, if you really want to progress as a ringer, then quarters and peals are going to be useful, and they can give you a fine sense of achievement. Special peals may be recorded on a peal board in the tower where it was rung. Just sometimes, you’ll find a pealboard in a tower which records a peal rung somewhere else. Either way, it’s always nice to walk into a tower and see your name on the wall!

Here’s an interesting and stylish pealboard from Penkridge in Staffordshire:

It’s nearly 200 years old, and etched upon slate. The method was Grandsire Eight (Grandsire Major). Grandsire on even numbers of bells was much more popular in those days than it is now. ‘Called and conducted by J Butcher’ is very curious expression, since ‘calling’ and ‘conducting’ mean pretty much the same thing! The eight bells at Penkridge were installed by John Taylor & Co in 1831. The ringers from the Collegiate church of St Peter in Wolverhampton clearly came down to Penkridge to show the locals how to ring them.

You can find out about towers and their bells by consulting Dove’s Guide online. The details of Penkridge bells are here:

Dove’s Guide: Penkridge, Staffs.

Ronald H Dove was tower captain at Leeds Parish Church for many years in the mid-twentieth century. It was he that first produced the guide to all the ringing towers in the world, and, though he’s no longer with us, it still bears his name. His son, Barrie Dove, still rings in Leeds and is currently President of the Yorkshire Association. I had the privilege of ringing with Ron Dove when I first moved to Leeds in 1976, though he had moved away from Leeds by then.

The bell on the front cover of the older printed versions of Dove is the tenor at Leeds Parish Church, now Leeds Minster. Weighing just over two tons, it was cast in 1932 by John Taylor & Co in Loughborough.

17: Extents

If you ring all the possible rows on a number of bells, you are said to have rung the extent.

An extent of Minimus (4 bells) is 24 rows. In case you weren’t able to write it out, or couldn’t be bothered trying, here’s a plain course of Plain Bob Minimus, which also happens to be the extent:

I’ve already suggested that the extent of Doubles is 120 rows. That takes about 5 minutes to ring, and I’ll show you how to get an extent of Grandsire Doubles shortly.

An extent of Minor (6 bells) is 720 changes, and takes somewhere roughly between 25 and 30 minutes to ring. Using the ideas from the last post, you should be able to see that 720 is just 120✖️6, or 1✖️2✖️3✖️4✖️5✖️6.

An extent of Triples (7 bells) is 720✖️7. Hopefully, you can understand where that sum came from. That gives 5040 changes, about 3 hours of ringing.

Once you start adding in even more bells, you can probably see that ringing an extent on more than 7 bells is going to take a long time. The extent on 8 bells (40 320 rows) by just 8 ringers has only ever been rung once, way back in 1963 at Loughborough Bellfoundry. It took 17 hours and 58 minutes. The method was Plain Bob Major.

Multiply that by 9 and you’ll see that an extent of Caters (9 bells) would take several days, and so wouldn’t be achievable by just 10 ringers (don’t forget, you need a covering tenor to ring Caters).

Here, for completeness is a table showing the names that are given to methods on the various numbers of bells, the number of changes in an extent, and a rough indication of the length of time it would take to ring it:

The extent on 16 at the Bull Ring isn’t going to be rung anytime soon.

The sixteen bells of St Martin’s Birmingham ringing Bristol Surprise 16