'the bells are rung up'

To prepare the bells for ringing by turning them upside down, mouth up.

Bells are attached at their top to a beam which is fixed to the axle of a wheel. The bell rope is attached to one of the spokes of the wheel, and passes through a hole in the wheel, along a groove around the outside of the wheel and then down to the ringer.

At rest, the bell is mouth downwards, a position which is gravitationally in stable equilibrium -- if moved gently it will return to the same position.

For change ringing the bell must be rotated through 180 degrees so that the mouth is uppermost. In this position it is naturally unstable, and a slight pull of the rope will pull it off balance and it will turn on its wheel. It only requires a slight pull to give it sufficient energy to turn through almost 360 degrees so that it is mouth up again, ready for the next pull. Bell ringing simply consists of pulling the rope an appropriate amount to turn the bell through almost 360 degrees and hold it on the balance ready for the next pull.

In order to achieve this the bell must first be 'rung up' from its safe rest position. The ringer starts by grasping the end of the rope in their left hand, and then coiling the slack end of the rope, some 6 feet, in their left hand. Then, still holding the coils in the left hand, both hands are placed around the 'sally', the section of the rope into which has been woven a soft cotton pile (so that it can be grabbed whilst moving without burning the ringer's hands). The ringer then pulls gently at the rope, and as the bell rocks to and fro on its wheel pulls each time to reinforce the gravitational fall of the bell. Each pull swings the bell a little higher, and as the bell swings more the ringer lets out a little rope from the coils -- this rope is gradually wrapped around a section of the wheel, where it unwinds and rewinds at every other pull. The length of rope is such that when the slack is all let out the bell will be swinging full circle.

On the heavier bells, say 6, 7 and 8, the ringer will put quite a bit of energy into ringing the bell up. Quite a bit of energy must be converted into kinetic energy to be stored in the bell as potential energy, ready for that next 360 degree turn.

All this is quite a daunting task for the beginner, who must learn not only to pull at just the right moment, and to keep pulling, but also to gradually let out the coils (however, making the coils when ringing the bell down is harder, since then you must actively do something to make the coils, rather than just let out a pre-coiled rope).

Once the ringer has learnt to ring a bell up, then they have to learn to ring up in peal, that is all the bells are rung up together in rounds. This is quite tricky to do for a novice ringer, or even a moderately experienced on. It is quite possible to be able to plain hunt, and ring Plain Bob methods without having properly acquired the skill of ringing up and down in peal, even though this is conceptually much easier to understand. Of course, one typically gets much less practice at ringing up and down, since these will normally only be done once each tome the bells are rund, whereas one can practice a method as many times as is desired.

simon