[Bell Historians] More bells?

[David Bryant]

“My late father's booklet 'Discovering Bells and Bellringing' will be
in need of further revision before too long. I am contemplating a
chapter about recent developments in ringing. One obvious topic is
the increasing number of augmentations over, say, the past 25 years. 
A 12 in every village, practically.”

As regards 12s, the reason is sometimes to get a light eight by adding two
trebles and a flat 6th / sharp 2nd to a ring of ten. It is perhaps also a
matter of prestige in some cases. I wonder what proportion of rings of 12
has a Sunday service band which can ring, say, at least Grandsire Cinques
regularly?

With higher numbers, it was presumably done at Birmingham because the band
had done everything that could be done on 12 - perhaps someone from
Birmingham can clarify? As I understand it, Perth were originally envisaged
as a 15 with semitones to give a light 12, and adding another bell was a
logical step given that it was only one bell needed to give 16. It's
interesting that 16-bell ringing doesn't seem to have caught on and there is
no 16 in or around London.

"And mini-rings. Why have the numbers increased enormously? Is it that,
once one person's done it, others realise that it isn't as difficult
as it looked?"

I think this can be attributed largely to Matthew Higby, who developed
hanging techniques for small bells and was the first to produce and sell
complete 'mini-ring packages' commercially - such mini-rings as existed
before were generally built by their owners.

David 

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