Saturday, June 24, 2006

Eye Church & other ecclesiastical interests


I went to the little village of Eye today in Suffolk UK. About 3/4 of an hour drive from here. The photo here by Rod Humby from Suffolk Churches website.
A very pretty village with lots of really old houses & a very grand church. I went to ring the bells for a wedding, (didn't know the bride & groom, just went to help out.) Horse drawn carriage & all.

The ringing chamber at Eye is amazing, it doesn't seem to even have been dusted since the 2nd world war & has old peal boards up on the walls from 1870 onward. One here you can see that's held up by carved wooden bells turned upside down.
There is a small bell on the side of the chamber like a servants bell that the verger pulls to let the ringers know when the wedding has finished and for us to start. No one was there to ring it today but when we got going at full swing with 8 bells the tower rocked around so much that this bell started to ring all by itself. It's a wild ride at Eye....Jeremy our leader had to ring 2 bells at once which is no mean feat.



As well as this ecclesiastic event, David & Kate came round to pick up the embroidery I've done for David for his ordination. We had a full dress rehearsal. He really looks the part. Next Saturday at Norwich Cathedral come on down...it's been a long time coming, he'll be a brilliant curate.

3 comments:

kelly said...

beautiful work! How did you end up being a bell ringer? Sounds like joyful work!

Anonymous said...

hello cheeky ,happy solstice .we have found an oz. cousin for monkee. trying to send photo.The farm has had rain.2kg's of mud on the bottom each gumboo, makes HEAVY work of the day.Onion seeds appreciate the rain though.

JoeyJoJo said...

I became a bell ringer when we moved here to Norfolk where they have more Church towers with bells in them than anywhere else in the world. They needed new recruits at the Church & we were "roped in".....been ringing for nearly 3 years now, mostly loving it but it's a weird & extreme sport.