Outing – Page 2 – The Bicester Branch

1st May 201518th February 2021

2015 Branch outing report

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.

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.

Kathryn putting ropes into the rope warmer after ringing

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.

Elstow Abbey’s detached tower	Ringing in elstow tower isa bit woolly?
A strange rope spider.. face one side, fish face the other	Some ringing at Elstow

Finally what better way to finish off a lovely day than to visit a tea garden for a cream tea?

Tea garden with Abbey visible in the background

Thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a fun day. Obligatory group photo below!

25th April 20158th February 2021

Mini fun April 2015

On Friday 25th April the Caversfield ringers and two of the Launton band trekked down the motorway to the Leigh End mini ring.

It took a bit of getting used to for some of the ringers but we had some pretty good ringing by the end of the evening.

We started with some handling tips from Mark Walker before we had goes on our own (including some double handed fun for those who had rung on mini rings before) and then had a go at rounds (one person had to ring double handed as we only had 7 ringers at the start.. I leave it to you to work out who was showing off!!). Next we rang call changes on all 8.
We then had a look at the bells as the last two ringers had arrived and then we had some more rounds on 8. That was followed by some plain hunt on 5 with tenor cover before stretching the limits and trying plain hunt on 7 which some haven’t tried anywhere before.
We progressed to Plain courses of Plain Bob Doubles with tenor cover and then Grandsire Doubles with a different tenor cover ringer. We rang rounds on the 8 at the end before the hilarity of ringing down.. though we didn’t try in peal despite Mark’s encouragement.

Anthony Cole

19th October 20138th February 2021

October 2013 outing report

Saturday 19th October was the day of the rescheduled branch outing (following cancellation of the outing in March due to snow).

The first tower of the day was Brightwalton, Berkshire – a fairly light 6. Only 4 ringers had arrived by the start time so we rang up the back 4 and hoped we would have more ringers joining us later. We started plain hunt on 4 and then Kathryn, Anthony B and Sally arrived to boost our number. We rang up the treble and two and then proceeded to ring some plain courses of Grandsire Doubles and call changes before our time was up.

Moving on to the next tower on some very countrified roads we arrived at Chieveley with my car sporting a punctured rear tyre…nice L shaped hole. Well that is what a spare is for though space saving ones aren’t that good really! After a rather continental style ring up of the back six we rang call changes and plain courses of Grandsire Doubles again. We then rang down and proceeded to the Hare And Hounds Hotel in Speen for lunch. I was supposed to have collected menu choices and phoned our order through, but the tyre fiasco had blocked it from my mind. Luckily with only 10 people to feed (seven ringers, one non-ringing husband, and two children) the food order didn’t take too long.

We next rang at the church in Speen – another six. We rang call changes and plain courses of Grandsire Doubles again.

Our final tower was the other side of Newbury – the ten of Thatcham (though we only rang the front six). These bells were the nicest bells of the day and we rang call changes and plain courses of Grandsire Doubles again. Before the end I had to leave to get my tyre fixed before the trip back to Bicester – a bit of googling had located a Kwik Fit in Newbury!

My thanks to Hilary, Anne, Kathryn, Sally, John and Anthony B for joining “Bicester Branch on tour”, for the villages for the use of their bells (and patience with our ringing up and down) and for the non-ringers (John, Samuel & Grace) who came to enjoy the day out and the pub lunch. Hopefully we can encourage more ringers to join us on future outings.

The next branch event is in just two days.. A special practice at Bicester on Monday night. Hopefully we will get enough ringers to ring Plain Bob Minor (and very unlikely Oxford TB Minor).

23rd March 20138th February 2021

2013 OUTING CANCELLED

Sorry folks, but today’s Branch Outing has had to be cancelled due to the snow.

I will try to re-arrange in the autumn when hopefully the weather will be a little warmer.

2nd March 20138th February 2021

Revised 2013 branch outing schedule

Following the cancellation of Great Shefford which I reported at the Branch AGM (great to see 18 ringers for this years meeting – and thanks for putting up with my organ playing!) I have rearranged the tower before lunch and the pub. The revised details of the outing (Saturday 23rd March, Newbury area) can be downloaded below:

Outing2013Poster

LUNCH MENU

Please pass on and if you are planning to come along please let Anthony know.

Due to forecast snow tomorrow I’ve set up a Twitter feed so I can get updates to everyone. The feed should automatically update on this web page (top right), but if not please search for @accole32 #bbo13 on Twitter.

14th February 2013

Details of 2013 outing

The Branch Outing for 2013 will be to the Newbury area on Saturday 23rd March. Please put the date in your diary.

Update 20130223: Great Shefford now require building work so have cancelled. I’m arranging an alternate tower and pub – revised details available as soon as confirmed.

Do please mention this to everyone you can – it would be great to see lots of ringers to make the outing more interesting for everyone.