David Horne writes about this summer’s Codgers outing:
After a lay-off of six years since the last outing to Bristol in 2018 (the first was to the Scotland in 2014) and with Covid and its after-effects behind us, there was a clear upsurge of interest in another summer outing on the traditional “just before” late August bank holiday weekend. So it was that around two dozen assorted characters arrived in Lincolnshire on Wednesday 21st August for 3 days of ringing involving around 17 towers representing all manner of bells from the county’s heaviest six (23cwt) to the heavy ten at Newark upon Trent (yes, I know it’s in Nottinghamshire!) and Stow St Mary the delightful little pre-cursor to Lincoln Cathedral (which was also visited by some of us).
People variously stayed on caravan/camping sites, in B&Bs or with friends close by. Fortunately we were blessed with very pleasant weather, at least until Saturday. The kick-off on Wednesday evening set the scene for the following three days – a rather challenging heavy ten at St Mary Magdalene, Newark. The church is unmissable from around the area with its 232 ft high tower. We rose well to the occasion and managed some Caters, but wisely decided that turning the tenor in for some Royal was beyond us.
Thursday was West Lindsey day. A fascinating area of North West Lincolnshire including the Isle of Axeholme (no longer an Isle), we enjoyed a wide range of towers in large towns like Gainsborough, smaller ones like Epworth (where Samuel Wesley was rector and his two sons were born), and tiny villages like Willingham by Stow and Scotter. In the evening, the group split, those who wanted to go to Lincoln Cathedral and join their practice on the splendid 24cwt twelve, and a few of us to a small six bell tower with a rather scary ladder called Upton-cum-Kexby where we were joined by the tower captain and had fun ringing “stuff” – most of which never came round.
Friday started with a light eight at Stow St Mary. The original church was built circa 975 by bishop Aelfnoth as Minster for his large diocese, and part of his large contingent of priests lived there until becoming the Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral – this gave rise to the tradition that Stow was the mother church of the cathedral. It was rebuilt in the 11th century and later enriched and endowed by Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his well known wife, Lady Godiva (yes, really!) A charter of 1054 survives describing how they furnished the church with priests who were to sing the services in the way in which they were sung in St Paul’s cathedral. In 1067 Remigius became the first Norman bishop of Dorchester on Thames, and before he moved his see to Lincoln in 1073, he built the nave of his Head Minster at Stow. Once moved to Lincoln, he transferred monks from Eynsham Abbey to make Stow a Benedictine monastery, but his successor moved them back again and Stow became a simple parish church.
We then moved progressively further south west from Lincoln, starting with a lovely ring of eight at St Giles in Lincoln and ending up at the county’s heaviest six at 23½ cwt in a small village called Brant Broughton, a perfect example of gothic architecture complete with a splendid nave ceiling and magnificent spire topping out at 198ft. We did well here, ringing a variety of methods pretty well, and some of us enjoyed the wonderful view from the base of the spire, and also internally directly up the centre of the spire. After all that, we were well ready for the outing’s evening meal which (not by accident) was just down the road at the charmingly named “Generous Briton” pub.
We paid a fleeting visit to Nottinghamshire on Saturday to ring at towers around Retford, starting with the easy going eight at Clarborough, which to everyone’s relief was actually…. a ground floor ring! St Swithun’s Retford was rather the opposite, with the ringing chamber protected by an array of stone steps, wooden ladder and a trip across the roof. For those prepared to scale the heights, a really lovely 23cwt ten awaited us – and we took advantage of the opportunity with a variety of ringing including a very nice course of Grandsire Caters (well I would say that wouldn’t I!).
We ended up at an “interesting” six at North Wheatley, partly at Richard Green’s request as his cousin lived there and turned up to meet us. Although only 8½cwt, they turned out to be pretty taxing and so we finished the outing as we’d started – heaving away on tricky bells, albeit the last being only a quarter the weight of the first!
Many thanks to all the ringers who came along and (I hope) enjoyed their time away. I certainly did!
For those that didn’t (come along that is, not enjoy), there is a video depicting our efforts at various towers. If you’d like to see it, contact me david.horne@the-hornes.org.uk and I’ll send you a link.
I’d also like to say a big “thank-you” to all the tower correspondents, every one of them was really friendly and helpful, I was able to get every single tower I had planned and there were no lock-outs. It was the easiest Summer outing I have ever organised. The ringers at Scotter were so taken by the picture of our cat that he now occupies pride of place on their notice board.
Scotter the church and Scotters our cat
So a big cheer for Lincolnshire!