Category: News

The Bell Restoration Fund AGM will be held at 8pm on 15th October 2025 in The Art Room, Leominster Community Centre, School Road, Leominster, HR6 8NJ.

As a reminder, the membership of the BRF comprises all current Ringing Members, Honorary Ringing Members and Freemen of the Guild, together with one representative from each affiliated church’s Parochial Church Council. Members are entitled to attend, speak and vote at the Annual General Meeting.

More about the Bell Restoration Fund and its work can be found here.

On 7th January 2025 we sadly lost Ena Plant, a ringer and great friend. Ena died in hospital after losing a battle with cancer.

Ena learned to ring in 2014 and was a very keen member of Broseley band.

Ena hadn’t been able to ring for some time due to a heart problem, but she was a very sociable person and always joined in and helped where she could. She organised prize draws for the BRF at District meetings and came along to tower fundraising and social events whenever she could.

During her working life She worked as a post lady and had also worked at RAF Cosford. During her retirement she enjoyed spending time with family and friends, sitting outside her bungalow with husband Paul enjoying the sunshine and walking their dog Bertie.

Ena was great fun and always smiling and laughing. She brightened the lives of many people and will be very much missed by all who knew her.

Our thoughts go out to Ena’s husband Paul and their family.

See also Coalbrookdale & Broseley Bellringers Facebook

We are very saddened to inform you that Mike Jefferis of Holmer died on 7th January 2025.  Mike was an extremely loyal, kind and dedicated man, his personal faith meant he was very much part of the warm and friendly atmosphere at Holmer church.  A member of our Guild since 1991, Mike was an enthusiastic and reliable member of the Holmer band and he will be hugely missed.

Our thoughts and deep sympathies are with his wife Sally and daughters Kirsty and Jody.

See Holmer Bellringer’s Facebook post

After many years as Peal Recorder, Neil Bennett has regretfully had to step down due to his health. Neil has been working closely with Andrew Watkins recently to add all the Guild peals onto Bellboard; Andrew will step in as Acting Peal Recorder for the time being.

With effect from 04/01/2025, there is a new address to be used for all Peal Recorder enquiries, including arrangements for paying peal fees and the election of new Non Resident Life Members.

All emails should be sent to pealrecorder@hdgb.org

It was a surprisingly sunny Saturday for our Tower Open Day around North Herefordshire, with a couple of last minute changes due to the deluge a couple of days earlier, we kicked off the day at Tarrington. Twenty-two towers were open throughout the day, with thanks to Anne at All Saints, offering the bells last minute to replace Marden and Bodenham, both
which had been flooded the previous day.

The route took ringers through some of our county’s pretty black & white villages, towers varied, with ground floor ringing rooms, detached towers, an anti-clockwise ring, the recently rehung and those still on plain bearings, from the three bell tower of Brinsop to the 10 at Leominster. Refreshments were available at several churches, with a selection of
cake and some fabulous soup provided by the ringers at Burghill.

Visitors included those who were new to ringing, experiencing their first new towers outside of their district, to those who had ventured across the country. We had ringers that travelled from Essex, Suffolk, North Wales and further afield with one making the trip down from Dunblane in Scotland. Five ringers managed to ring at all 22 open towers during the day, a small prize awaited them at the final tower, Leominster.

We are delighted to say that over £1100 was raised for the Bell Restoration Fund. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came along, whether as a visitor, a steward or to help out with refreshments, your support is greatly appreciated.

Due to some very wet weather a couple of days ago we have had to make a couple of changes to the towers tomorrow.
The first tower will now be Tarrington 9:00-10:00.
Unfortunately both Marden and Bodenham churches have flooded in the past 8 hours, we have however arranged for Hereford, All Saints to be open 10:30 – 11:30.

We hope this doesn’t dampen your excitement too much and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Our Events Team has also been out and about checking the route, we still have a couple of roads flooded that we hope will have subsided by Saturday. We will update if an alternate route is necessary

We look forward to meeting you on Saturday!

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On Saturday 19th October, join us to enjoy a day in north Herefordshire visiting our famous black & white villages, ringing at 23 towers, from 3 bells at the recently rehung Brinsop, to 10 bells in the market town of Leominster.

As the Guild has not held a Tower Open Day for over 30 years, you might not be sure what a Tower Open Day entails or what to expect. A Tower Open Day is similar to our AGM days, or a ringing outing in reverse, we open our towers for an advertised time and ringers will come along to ring. Open Days are a popular way for ringers to experience ringing at new towers in different parts of the country.  They are very social and friendly events and are an excellent way of raising money.  Any profits we make from the day will be donated to the Hereford Diocesan Guild Bell Restoration Fund (charity number 508531) so we hope as many local ringers as possible will support the event.

Towers will be open for one hour from the time shown (see list of towers below). Local ringers and stewards will be at each tower to help the day run smoothly. Some towers will also be providing refreshments for a small donation.

Tickets

Earlybird tickets £20, tickets on the day £25, or £2 per tower. Cash only – no card facilities on the day.

Earlybird tickets are available to book from 15th September to 13th October, email Nicky at peo@hdgb.org

Day tickets, allowing access to all towers open on the day will be available from the first five towers.

Download a poster of the tower list with lots of information about the towers here:

All towers will be open for 1 hour from the time shown, stewards and local ringers will be at each to to help the day run smoothly.

All funds raised will go to the Hereford Diocesan Guild of Bellringers Bell Restoration Fund, Charity No. 508531.

Stewards- can you help?

We are looking for people to help out on the day as tower stewards. If you would like to volunteer either by yourself or as a small group, please let us know, email eventsteam@hdgb.org. We will need 3 or 4 people for each tower, don’t worry if you’re not sure what’s involved, everything is explained here!

More information

We will be keeping tower captains and steward volunteers informed in the run up to the event, but if you would like any more information about how the day will work at any time please get in touch – email eventsteam@hdgb.org.

We hope that you will be able to support the event and look forward to seeing you somewhere on the day.

HDGB Events Team

Nicky Aubrey, Richard Bracher, Tim Hollinghurst, Fran Watkins

Towers

Time	Place	Bells
09:00	Tarrington	6
09:25	Withington	6
09:50	Sutton St Nicholas	6
10:30	Hereford, All Saints	8
11:05	Wellington	6
11:30	Canon Pyon	6
11:50	Kings Pyon	5
12:15	Weobley	6
12:40	Brinsop	3
13:00	Burghill	8
13:25	Pipe cum Lyde	6
13:45	Holmer	6
14:15	Norton Canon	6
14:40	Almeley	6
15:05	Eardisley	6
15:30	Dilwyn	6
15:55	Pembridge (tbc)	5
16:20	Staunton on Arrow	6
16:45	Eardisland	8
17:10	Kingsland	8
17:35	Eye	6
18:00	Leominster	10