[Bell Historians] More bells?

[Andrew Wilby]

I did a "desk-top" survey a while ago and it appeared that in fact a 
very high proportion of 12's did have a 12 bell band of sorts. Having 
done a quick refresher I supect it is around the 75% mark currently.

My gut feeling, with no evidence, is that this is probably better than 
the 10's 8's and 6's with most of the 12's having stronger than the 
average bands ringing 10 and 8 quite a lot if they meet short for 12. If 
the other number did as well we should expect to see more ringers in 
total than the 30,000 guild membership statistic and the 40,000 C of E 
survey figure that we are given.

Every location tends to have different circumstances and a significant 
number of 12 bell towers are in cities where large groups tends to cover 
all.

Back in the 70's at the start of the 12 bell contest there were only 5 
places which had indigenous 12 bell bands which you could consider local 
and self-sustaining. Since then the number of 12 bell centres has grown 
dramatically as indeed has the number of 12 bell towers over this 
period, having just about doubled. The National 12 bell Contest can 
claim credit for stimulating much of this growth and enthusiasm.

I think also that there is a strong demonstrable correlation between 
augmentation and an upsurge of ringing activity that creats a 
sustainable ringing "hotspot" for years to come.

Hasn't there always been a tradition of augmentation over the past 300 
years, driven by interest in change-ringing? I would guess that the 
amount of augmentation in any period will relate to the social and 
economic standing of the ringers and their ability to attract or 
generate funds.

I think we should start to worry very seriously for ringing if 
restoration and augmentation starts to dry up.

Andrew