Christ Church Cathedral Marks 90th Anniversary of Tower Bells
This Sunday, 12th July, at 9.30am you can experience the rare feat of a quarter peal of change ringing in honour of the 90th anniversary of the dedication of the tower bells at Christ Church Cathedral. A quarter peal takes around forty-five minutes and involves 1260 changes, or ring patterns, of the bells in a complex, orchestrated composition. This quarter peal will be done in the Grandsire Triples method, the same pattern that would have likely been used at the first ringing of these bells ninety years ago.
Change-ringing is a particular form of musical composition whose mastery takes skill, precision, and teamwork. The practice dates back hundreds of years in England and its purpose was to call people to worship, and also served as a means of keeping time as the ringing let people know the hours for prayer.
Christ Church Cathedral is one of only seven sites in all of Canada with live change-ringing summoning people to worship on a regular basis. There is a dedicated Cathedral Guild of Ringers who practice their craft every week and ring for us on Sundays and special occasions. They are also teaching students at Christ Church Cathedral School to ring so that the tradition will carry on to future generations.
The original eight tower bells of the cathedral were paired to the bells at Westminster Abbey to mimic their sound. They were cast in the White Chapel Bell Foundry in London in 1935 and first rung here on July 12th of 1936. All the bells are solid bronze and weigh anywhere from 225kg to 1498kg.
The bells are in the belfry of the north tower and one must climb 71 steps up the spiral staircase to reach them. If you are interested in learning to ring the bells you can email Peter Bailey at towercaptain@christchurchcathedral.bc.ca and if you would like to see the bells there will be an open house as part of the Cathedral’s block party event on August 15th.