On Saturday 18th April 14 ringers plus some “hangers on” trekked to Bedfordshire for the 2015 Bicester Branch Outing. The A421 stressed out a few of the sat navs (those like mine which hadn’t been updated to show the course of the new road!) but we managed to get to Haynes by the 10am start time.
A pleasant little 6 with a lovely church – nice that the congregation can watch the ringers. We rang call changes, plain hunt and lots of Grandsire Doubles here.
From here we moved to Biggleswade and the first 8 of the day.
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The tower was in the middle of renovation work and featured an open cased clock mechanism – who is that scruffy person ringing the tenor?? 😀 We rang call changes, plain hunt on 7 and even managed a course of Grandsire Triples here.
Lunch was up the A1 on the outskirts of Eaton Socon (our next tower stop) where we had a lovely meal at the Highwayman (Brewers Fayre). Some of us were inside and those with dogs were able to sit and eat outside in the sunshine.
Next was the 8 bells of Eaton Socon where we again managed Plain hunt on 7 and Grandsire Triples as well as call changes. The tower also had a monitor showing a live camera feed from the bell chamber – something that would be fun in more towers perhaps.
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The next tower Eynesbury wasn’t far away, but confused the ringing master and his sat nav a little! At least he arrived in time for a last ring! The tower was also able to confuse a number of the other ringers as the bells were arranged in an anti-clockwise order which, whilst not exactly rare, is not something the Bicester branch ringers have experience of.
Watch the video of ringing at Eynesbury
(Thanks to Steve Cameron for taking the video)
Lastly we visited the birth place of John Bunyan, author of the Pilgrim’s Progress amongst other things. Not only that but John Bunyan rang in the detached tower at Elstow Abbey where we were to ring. Having arrived to late for the attempt at Eynesbury, we rang a couple of courses of Eynesbury Bob Doubles at Elstow along with Grandsire Doubles, Plain Bob Minor and call changes.
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Finally what better way to finish off a lovely day than to visit a tea garden for a cream tea?
Thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a fun day. Obligatory group photo below!
