[Bell Historians] Tower Classification required

[alan Buswell aaj.buswell@gmail.com [bellhistorians]]

Getting back to my original question,I will categorise a secular ring as a
purpose built erection where it is unlikely that any religious service will
take place in the future.

AAJB

On 20 April 2016 at 15:07, 'Richard Offen' richard.offen at iinet.net.au
[bellhistorians] <bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

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> *From:* bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com [mailto:
> bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 20 April 2016 6:16 PM
> *To:* bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com
> *Subject:* RE: [Bell Historians] Tower Classification required
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> This does all seem to come down to approaches to purpose, definition and
> classification. Choices are legion. To name a few there is a location
> approach. We could separate religious and secular by whether or not the
> bells hang in a consecrated building. Alternatively, we could consider
> control issues. Who has to give permission for the bells to be rung? Is it
> the vicar and/or the churchwardens on one hand, or some lay person on the
> other? A third choice is use. Is the ringing of bells ever associated with
> church services? The example of Swaffham Prior demonstrates the complexity
> of reaching any definitive conclusion. Two churches in the same churchyard.
> The one with bells redundant, the 'church' (can we even still call it
> that?) mainly used for a variety of secular activities (including
> 'champing' - imagine glamping but in a church) and never used for services.
> Yet the bells are rung for the services in the other church. On location
> and control criteria it is 'secular'. On use it is 'religious'. Take your
> pick.
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> From a historical perspective I think it is arguable that provision and
> maintenance of bells in churches (certainly up to the nineteenth century)
> formed part of the local government responsibilities of a parish - along
> with mending the parish pump, dealing with highways, lighting, policing and
> poor relief - rather than having much to do with the care of souls.
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> For me, what might be helpful is not simply a list of rings divided into
> secular and religious, but one with more metadata associated (such as, in
> my example, where each sits in the location, control, use categories). But
> that's probably too much work to do on the basis that it might be useful to
> someone at some point.
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> Please can we drop this topic now, it’s getting very boring.
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> A ring of bells is a ring of bells and, to most ringers, it matters not
> what classification of building they are in.   Here in Perth we have one,
> very useful, ‘secular’ ring, which greatly helps to feed new recruits to
> the three ecclesiastical rings (the majority of whose ringers make up the
> secular tower’s band).
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> For the record, and going back to the original gist of this
> correspondence, we have NEVER set out at the Bell Tower, Perth, to be the
> leading quarter peal tower in Australia, but ringing quarter peals is a fun
> way to supply the daily ringing we are committed to provide at the tower
> for the enjoyment of our non-ringing visitors and also helps the Perth band
> as a whole to make progress.   Whether or not Alan Buswell choses to list
> the Bell Tower’s quarters in his annual ranking is a matter of total
> indifference to the majority of our band …end of story!
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> Richard
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