back to contents

St. Michael’s, Bray

On Sunday 13th October 2002 over 40 members and guests of The Inspector Morse Society gathered for lunch at the picturesque village of Bray, which was the location used for much of the outside filming of SERV. Drinks were first taken in The Crown (also used in the episode), before a superb lunch was served at The Hind’s Head during which the vicar of Bray, The Reverend George Redpath, gave a talk on the church and the filming that took place there. Afterwards we were all allowed to visit the church and climb the tower to the Ringing and Bell Chambers (which also featured in the climax to one of the Midsomer Murders television series) and hear the bells go through their paces. Below is a short history of the tower, and a guide to bell ringing.

The tower consists of four rooms or chambers, the ground floor forms the porch and south entrance to the church itself.

The first room reached by climbing the spiral staircase is the Ringing Chamber, where the bell ropes can be seen, and the walls are hung with peal-boards, photographs, and other items of interest.

Above this room is the Bell Chamber, containing the bells and the clock. There are 8 bells in this tower, ranging from the Treble (6 owt. in D) to the Tenor at about 24 owt., also in D, cast in 1656. The oldest bell is the 4th, cast in 1612; the newest are Treble and 2nd, cast in 1948.

The clock was installed in 1840 by J. Whitehurst of Derby - a forerunner of the present company Smith’s of Derby - believed to be one of a small number of its type. John Whitehurst was a well-known maker of turret clocks and one of three clock makers invited to tender for the Westminster clock in 1846. The clock is now wound by electric motor, installed in 1985.

The fourth room in the Tower is now not really a room at all; until 1985 it was the bell chamber and the room below simply the clock chamber, but after the restoration in that year when the bells were re-hung one floor lower, the old bell chamber floor was removed and replaced with the present ‘gallery’ which gives visitors an excellent view of the bells, and provides access to the sound-control doors over the louvres.

There are three ways of sounding a bell:

Clocking by means of wires and hammers, as done here by our clock,

Chiming gently swinging the bell so that the clapper strikes the side,

Ringing where the bell starts mouth-upwards (‘up’) and passes through 360 degrees, the clapper striking once on the way, and then swings in the reverse direction for the next stroke.

Bells are made from ‘bell metal’ which consists roughly of 4 parts copper to 1 part tin, and the bells made of this were discovered in the ancient city of Nineveh during excavations at the turn of the last century.

Hand bells have been used in churches, monasteries and cathedrals in this country since the 7th century, but were first believed to have been used for calling people to worship long before this in the district of Campania in Southern Italy. Hence the name Campanology.

Bells are rung in ‘rounds’ or ‘changes’. Rounds are the natural sequence of the bells - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. Change-ringing, which was introduced in the 17th century, can be defined as the art of ringing bells in changes, so that a different ‘change’, or re-arrangement, is produced at each pull of the ropes, until, without any repetition of the same changes, the bells come back into ‘rounds’. This can be done either by a Conductor calling the next change or sequence, and is known as ‘Call changing’; or by each ringer using a set pattern or permutation without being told by the Conductor, and is known as ‘Method ringing’.

The number of changes possible increases with the number of bells:

Changes on 5 bells are called ‘Doubles’ and produce 120 changes.

Changes on 6 bells are called ‘Minor’ and produce 720 changes.

Changes on 7 bells are called ‘Triples’ and produce 5040 changes

and so on up to 12 bells, which would be over 479 million changes and take nearly 38 years to ring at the rate of 5,000 every three hours.