Imagine a day of ringing designed just for you. You choose what to work on and a band of capable volunteers rings perfectly around you while your personal tutor offers feedback and answers questions. Add an opportunity to ring at an iconic 12-bell tower. You can even have your travel and accommodation expenses covered.
That might sound too good to be true, but I experienced all of this last weekend at an ART masterclass in Bristol.
How do you get invited?
In case you haven’t heard of this programme, let me fill you in.
The Association of Ringing Teachers created the Learning the Ropes course as a structured pathway to learn bell ringing. By the time a student has progressed through all 5 levels, they will have rung 6 quarter peals, the most difficult of which is Bob Minor inside.
Completion of Level 5 also comes with an invitation to an ART masterclass, an event which runs twice a year in Bristol or Birmingham.
I completed my Level 5 in July 2025 and eventually reached the top of the waiting list for the masterclass.
On the day, 10 attendees would be split into 2 groups. Each group would ring at 2 towers, and then the groups would join to ring together at St Mary Redcliffe in the centre of Bristol.
A long-standing ambition
In the run-up to the day, I was asked what I wanted to ring. This didn’t take me long to decide.
Years ago, when I hadn’t been ringing long, I went on an association outing where I heard a beautifully struck touch of Stedman Triples. It was the most extraordinary music I had heard to date and left a lasting impression on me. One day I wanted to ring like that.
After completing Level 5, Stedman Triples finally seemed within reach. To get some experience I began attending the monthly district triples practice.
There are some ringers who find learning Stedman Triples easy. I see them around. I am not like them. The bells seem to come from unexpected directions in Stedman and there is no treble to guide you. After painfully crashing my way through plain courses, I concluded that I need to build up gradually by concentrating on other triples methods first.
Eventually a plain course of Stedman became easy. But the touches – oh, the touches! How many dodges have I done? Was I going up or down? And the infernal question I never seemed to know the answer to – am I going in quick or slow?
Of course, one attempt a month at touches of Stedman doesn’t constitute much practice. Some months we didn’t have the band to ring them at all. In others, the ringing would fire out before I had a chance to go wrong.
All the same, I had been trying and failing for so long that I started to hear a niggly voice in the back of my head. Maybe I just can’t do it. Everyone’s progress plateaus eventually, and I had reached mine. This is as far as I go.
Then along comes the ART masterclass and the best opportunity I will ever have to see if I can finally crack it.
Stedman Triples or bust
At the first tower I was introduced to my tutor Matthew, and we talked about what I hoped to achieve and what I struggled with. He let me make some mistakes and then helped me work out a way to avoid them by getting me to concentrate on one thing at a time. We also talked about how Stedman is structured, and how that knowledge can help keep me right.
Eventually I was able to put everything we talked about together. We rang a touch with a whole string of calls that affected me, and I rang them all without prompts. When I came down from 4-5 with no idea whether I should be in quick or slow, I worked it out using nothing but rope sight. I was even pleased with my striking.
“Can I call myself a Stedman Triples ringer now?” I asked as I stood my bell.
“Yes, you definitely can,” came the reply.
Raaaa!!!
Hang on – they weigh how much?!
Having finally cracked Stedman, I arrived at Redcliffe with a very different challenge waiting for me.
I’ll admit that I may have been a little slow on the uptake, but I didn’t realise until the day before the masterclass that, with a 50cwt tenor, Redcliffe is the 5th heaviest ring in the country. That’s over 2 ½ tonnes and, according to Lucas Williams’ brilliant website, roughly equivalent to a small jet.
I’m 5’4” and I’m not exactly going to win any arm-wrestling competitions. I don’t look like the typical ringer of big bells. My home tower has an 11cwt tenor, and I clearly remember the first time I asked to have a go. I made a terrible mess of it and was quickly switched back to a lighter bell.
It wasn’t just at my own tower that this gender split was evident. When I rang with other groups, I found that the heavier bells tended to be taken by men. Not always, of course, but often. So, apart from the occasional moment of pig-headed bravery, such as the 27cwt tenor at Tenterden, I gravitated to lighter bells.
No one ever told me outright that I couldn’t do it. It was just… an expectation that settled on me. Little girls don’t ring big bells.
A while ago I happened across an excellent YouTube video by Julia Cater on how smaller people can ring big bells. Her advice on how to use your whole body and not just your arms made perfect sense to me. I resolved to try out her techniques whenever I had the opportunity.
In a break from the ringing, I tentatively asked my tutor if attendees were given an opportunity to ring the tenor. Yes, they were.
Did he think I could do it? Yes, he did. And yes, he would support me.
That’s all I needed.
At Redcliffe, they clearly have a system for building people up to ring the tenor. They started me on the 10. That was OK, so they moved me to the 11. When that was also fine, I got to have a go on the 12.
The tenor weighs twice as much as the 11, so even with the gradual build-up, it was quite a jump. I listened carefully to advice on when to start pulling, and then we were off. I didn’t let it drop and I didn’t get out of place. It took me a few attempts to stand it, but that seemed to be pretty normal, even for the experienced tenor ringers.
Sweaty and beaming, I clambered down from the massive box. I was definitely ready for a celebratory pint (or three) at the pub. You can work up quite a thirst ringing a small jet.
A peek behind the curtain
I have organised enough ringing to appreciate the impressive teamwork required to make a day like this run smoothly. Ten attendees, twenty helpers and five towers do not organise themselves.
In the pub opposite St Mary’s, I asked a couple of the organisers how they did it. The answer: with a great deal of thought and care.
Before the day even began, there had been conversations about what each attendee wanted to ring, along with a healthy amount of Bell Board stalking to understand their current level. Tutors were carefully chosen and paired with tutees based on factors such as experience, focus and teaching style.
Then came the challenge of running of the ringing at each tower, as bands were carefully placed to take advantage of each helper’s strengths. Even at this level, good ringing comes not just from individual skill, but from understanding people and how they work together.
That’s all
The rest of the evening got a bit blurry after that. There was pizza. There were noisy pubs with condensation-covered windows, and walks between them along rain-lashed streets as Storm Boelo battered Bristol. Somehow, I was delivered safely back to my hotel, very ready for bed – and unprepared for the next morning’s unexpected task of blow-drying the inside of my soaked shoes.
I would like to say a massive THANK YOU to Stephanie Warboys, my tutor Matthew, the sponsors, organisers, drivers and everyone who turned out to ring. You are an amazing team.
Now, who wants to help me ring a quarter of Stedman Triples?
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