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The Newt, Winter Solstice 2022

2022-12-21T20:00:00+00:00

Lunch at the Garden Cafe and a walk round The Newt in Somerset gardens on Winter Solstice 2022.

Wiltshire January 1982

2022-11-21T19:35:00+00:00

These photos were taken in Wiltshire in January 1982.

Australia 1981-1982

2022-11-21T19:30:00+00:00

These photos were taken in Victoria, Australia in December 1981 and January 1982.

Spain June 1981

2022-11-21T12:35:00+00:00

These photos were taken in San Sebastian, Spain around June 1981.

Wiltshire August 1981

2022-11-21T12:30:00+00:00

These photos were taken in Wiltshire around August 1981.

Wiltshire May 1981

2022-11-17T20:15:00+00:00

These photos were taken in Wiltshire around May 1981.

Minety 1980

2022-11-09T20:00:00+00:00

These photos were taken in or near Minety, Wiltshire in 1980 or 1981.

Aldbourne 1981

2022-11-09T19:30:00+00:00

These photos were taken in or near Aldbourne, Wiltshire in 1980 or 1981.

Wallingford 1980/1981

2022-11-09T18:30:00+00:00

These photos were taken in or near Wallingford, Oxfordshire in 1980 and 1981.

Wiltshire December 1980

2022-11-09T18:00:00+00:00

These photos were taken in Wiltshire around December 1980.

Lewisham 1979

2022-11-09T15:00:00+00:00

These photos were taken in Lewisham and Crouch End, London in 1979.

Broad Oak April 1979

2022-11-09T14:00:00+00:00

These photos were taken at Little Mayton and Brookside cottages in the village of Broad Oak in Kent around April 1979. Little Mayton cottage was demolished several years ago.

I don't remember the names of several of these people.

Canal Trip July 1980

2022-11-09T12:30:00+00:00

I have recently been digitising old 35mm black and white negatives and I thought I would put my favourites online. This is my first batch. The pictures will probably only be of interest to those who were there or who know the people in them. I am not planning to identify anyone in these pictures (except for myself).

These photos come from a canal holiday I took with friends in July 1980.

Leigh On Mendip Bells

2022-11-08T16:23:00+00:00

The Bells of St Giles' Church, Leigh on Mendip

Leigh on Mendip Church and Bells

St Giles' church is situated in the centre of Leigh on Mendip village between the Memorial Hall and the village school. It dates from around 1350 and was rebuilt around 1500. Leigh was a chapelry of Mells until 1860.

The most prominent feature of St Giles' church is the 91' 6" (28m) tower. It was built of Doulting stone c. 1475-90 and has the most sophisticated decoration of all the Mendip churches. It is described by Pevsner as "A remarkable performance".

The ring of 6 bells dates to 1757 when they were cast by Thomas Bilbie of Chew Stoke. The bells were then rehung in 1858 in a new oak frame by John Warner and Sons of London, the 2nd bell was recast at this time (presumably the old bell was cracked). The bells were rehung again (but in the same frame) in 1910 by Llewellins & James of Bristol and they also recast the 3rd bell.

As well as the bells the tower also contains an unusual faceless clock. The clock probably dates to the late 18th century and it was restored by Dr Marcus Barton in 2004.

The first peal on the bells was rung on 5th January 1901 and to date 23 peals have been rung at Leigh. A peal is 5040 changes and takes approximately 3 hours to ring. Some of the peals are recorded on peal boards in the ringing chamber like this one. Perhaps one of your family is listed here?

Details of the Bells

Treble: 29 1/2" 4 ¾cwt D#

Mr CLARK KNG & Mr WM FINNIEAR CH W 1757 T B

Second: 30" 5cwt C#

CAST BY JOHN WARNER & SONS LONDON 1858 (Royal arms) PATENT

Third: 31 3/4" 6cwt B

J.E. HONNYWILL VICAR H. CARY G.H. BANTING CHURCHWARDENs LLEWELLINS ~ JAMES LTD BRISTOL RECAST 1910 FROM OLD BELL 1756

Fourth: 33 3/4" 7cwt A#

Mr CLARK KING & Mr WM FINNIEAR CH W 1757 T B F

Fifth: 37" 9cwt G#

Mr CLARK KING & Mr WM FINNIEAR CH W 1757 T B F

Tenor: 42" 12cwt F#

Mr CLARK KING & Mr WILLIAM FINNIEAR CH WARDENS 1757 T BILBIE FECITI TO THE CHURCH THE LIVEING CALL AND TO THE GRAVE DOTH SUMMON ALL

Rehanging the Bells

The bells were removed, tuned and rehung on new bearings by Matthew Higby and Company in 2019.

Bellringing at Leigh

We have an active band of local ringers and we often have visitors from other towers at our practice nights and sometimes to help with Sunday service ringing. As well as Sunday services we also ring for village events such as the Flower Festival, national events such as the Queen's Jubilee and also for weddings.

We are always on the lookout for new recruits so if you are interested please come along to one of our Tuesday night practices and find out more. Most Tuesdays we are at Leigh but 2nd Tuesday of the month we ring at Mells.

You do not need to be strong to ring a bell. Ringing is a sociable and mentally stimulating hobby as well as a form of gentle exercise. It is suitable for anyone from about 10 to 80+ years of age.

Sensors for a Ringing Simulator

2018-08-02T18:00:00+01:00

For some time I have been planning to install at least one sensor on the Leigh bells so we can do some training with a simulator such as Abel.

The picture above shows a prototype and two sensors that I have made. The prototype on the left has both a magnetic and infrared detector. The middle one is infrared and the one on the right is magnetic.

All the sensors use an Arduino Nano to continuously scan for a change in an input and the sending this via Serial/USB to a PC running Abel or another simulator program. I use a 10m active USB cable to connect the sensor in the bell chamber to the PC in the ringing chamber. This is just long enough for Leigh on Mendip tower (we have an upstairs ringing chamber with a clock chamber between the ringing chamber and the bell chamber). You can plug this straight into the PC and Abel will detect it as a serial port, just configure Abel to use the serial data not the signal lines. The USB cable provides the power to the Arduino so no power is needed in the bell chamber.

The code running on the Arduinos is very simple.

Arduino source code for the magnetic version.

/*
 Magsensor

 Magnetic proximnity sensor for bell simulator.  

 */

// constants won't change. They're used here to
// set pin numbers:
const int sensorPin = 2;    // the number of the proximity sensor signal pin
const int ledPin = 13;      // the number of the LED pin

int sensorState = LOW;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(2400);

  pinMode(sensorPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);

  // set initial LED state
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}

void loop() {
  // read the state of the switch into a local variable:
  int reading = digitalRead(sensorPin);
  digitalWrite(ledPin, reading);

  if (reading != sensorState) {
    sensorState = reading;
    if (sensorState == HIGH) {
      Serial.print("1");
    }
  }
}

Arduino source code for the infrared version.

/*
 Irsensor

 IOnfra red sensor for bell simulator.  

 */

// constants won't change. They're used here to
// set pin numbers:
const int sensorPin = 3;    // the number of the IR sensor signal pin
const int ledPin = 13;      // the number of the LED pin

int sensorState = LOW;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(2400);

  pinMode(sensorPin, INPUT);
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);

  // set initial LED state
  digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
}

void loop() {
  // read the state of the switch into a local variable:
  int reading = digitalRead(sensorPin);
  digitalWrite(ledPin, reading);

  if (reading != sensorState) {
    sensorState = reading;
    if (sensorState == HIGH) {
      Serial.print("1");
    }
  }
}

Leigh Ringers Outing 2018

2018-07-11T18:40:00+01:00

On Wednesday 11th July 2018 Leigh ringers and friends set off on our annual outing. This year our outing was arranged by Alastair Weston and we went to South Somerset and just into Dorset.

Our first ring was at South Cadbury, a pleasant 13cwt ground floor ring of 6. We then went to Marston Magna, which just happened to be another 13cwt ring of 6!

Ringing at Marston Magna

Going over the border into Dorset we came to Bradford Abbas. Yet another 13cwt ring of 6, but these bells were a little bit different! Due to there being a very low ceiling and the sallies going up into the ceiling and into tubes (as we were told) you had to be very careful with your handling when ringing these bells. If you didn't pull straight down through the center of the hole and keep a tight rope all the time the sally would tend to fly all over the place. It was a good test of our ringing skills and unfortunately not everyone passed the test! It would definitely be a challenge to ring a quarter peal here.

We stayed in Bradford Abbas for lunch at the Rose and Crown. The food was excellent and the service was prompt.

The first tower after lunch was East Coker, a 10cwt ring of 8 although I got confused and thought they were 17cwt! The most interesting thing at East Coker was the stained glass sally on the stairs leading up to the ringing chamber.

Window and tenor ringing at East Coker

Stoke sub Hamdon were a lovely 17cwt ring of 6 and we had a welcome breeze blowing through the ringing chamber.

Stoke sub Hamdon

Our final tower was Somerton, a really nice 20cwt ring of 8, I would definitely like to go back there for a quarter or peal one day.

Somerton

It was a good day out, thanks to Alastair Weston for organizing it and also thanks to everyone who came and to the towers for allowing us to ring. I'm looking forward to next year already!

Opening up the Trap Door

2017-08-11T20:00:00+01:00

Our first task in the Leigh Bell Restoration project was to open up the trap door in the floor of the ringing chamber so that the bells can be removed from the tower for retuning. We needed to do this in advance as a new glass ceiling was going to be installed in the tower below the ringing chamber and once this was in place it would be more difficult to access the floor of the ringing chamber from below. We had discovered that there was a trap door in the floor but it had been boarded over on both sides at some time in the past.

We have now made the trap door openable again. These pictures show the work being performed by Leigh ringers Ian Tucker, John Davis and Jackie Davis. The photos are by Chris Cudmore.