Three Have A Surprising Day South

On Saturday we headed south to meet up with the Open University Society of Bellringers. Last time we rang with them was back in 1995 in Oxfordshire!  Over the years we have visited a variety of towers with these ringers, from large influential churches such as St Martins in the Fields and the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, to small village churches. Today we were heading for Bedfordshire and it sure was a day of surprises.

Surprise No. 1 - Despite leaving later than planned we were still early! Having completely forgotten to take sufficient cash with us, this provided the opportunity to pop into the village shop and get cashback..

White Lion?

Surprise No. 2 - Getting out the car and seeing this white creature carved into the hillside.
I assume it is a horse, but it could be a lion. I couldn't find any information online about it, but then I wasn't really sure as to the precise location of the carving.

Surprise No.3 - There was a loo in the first church. Small, but essential detail, and made the coffee even more welcome! Thank you to the local tower captain, who took time to come and make drinks for a bunch of strangers.

Surprise No. 4 - The first tower bells were more difficult than I anticipated. A 9cwt ring of six should have been easy to ring, but they required more effort than their weight suggested. I did wonder if they were still on plain bearings.

Surprise No. 5 - How busy a small place can be. Our second tower was Toddington, a bustling village, where it was very difficult to find anywhere to park, but we did :)

Not Woburn Abbey

Surprise No. 6 - Pershore Abbey has bells.
Tewkesbury Abbey has bells.
Westminster Abbey has bells.
Bath Abbey has bells.
Woburn Abbey does not have any bells, being a stately home, not a church. However, we did ring at the parish church. A majestic 24 cwt ring of eight complete with a partial moat or haha..








Surprise No. 7 - Woburn Church was full of shoeboxes!
There were hundreds in there - at the ends of pews, against pillars, on the chancel steps, round the font. I have never seen so many shoeboxes, even in a shoe shop!









Surprise No. 8 - We had to leave via the crypt.  The KHT was very excited, she thought she had located a secret dungeon!

Surprise No. 9 - We found a pub serving lasagne that had room for about 16 people, who wandered in without a prior booking... The pub we went in was The bell, opposite The Bell. Well, where else would ringers go?

Surprise No. 10 - How wet it was. I had not taken much note of the forecast, as we planned to be indoors, or travelling for most of the day.  It was quite a surprise when it started raining, and the rest of the day remained damp and drizzly with limited visibility through the murk. A pity, as what we could see of the countryside was very beautiful. Even through the greyness, the autumn trees were a joy to behold

Not a Flat White

Surprise No. 11 - They do not know how to make a flat white in Woburn... Not wanting vast quantities of liquid, I ordered a coffee to go with my meal
"Can you do a flat white?" I asked. The waitress didn't bat an eyelid.
"Filter Coffee" she muttered under her breath, gave a satisfied nod and I KNEW I was doomed :).
"Can you do a Latte? asked my husband
The waitress gave him a look, as if he had asked for something totally impossible, but she duly brought him a latte.
Me, I got filter coffee with a jug of milk.
Fine - just NOT a flat white!







Surprise No. 12 - There are a lot of really big houses in this area. Not just one or two, but lots of sizeable country houses.

Surprise No. 13 - Finding the church at Cranfield.

Not Cranfield Church

As we headed into the village I spotted a spire, and it was right where the satnav indicated the church would be.
Great, we rejoiced, that was easy to find.
Then I thought
"How on earth do you fit a 17cwt ring of six in there?!!!"
Answer - you don't.
I do not know what building it had been in a previous life, a school possibly. Now it was housing.
We turned around and looked...

Cranfield Church

"Ah, there is the church!"
Now that looks more like the sort of tower that would take a heavy ring of six!





Surprise No. 14 - Beautifully carved angels inside the church.
I couldn't decide if this one had an early version of an ipad or an x-ray machine, or what..















We arrived at the last tower at 3:30pm. We rang, and enjoyed a ringers tea - sandwiches, sausage rolls, pizza, etc.,. The KHT tried a pickled gherkin, but was not impressed...
Then we had a meeting during which the constitution had to be updated...
By the time we emerged it was well dark and we had completely forgotten which direction we had approached the church from and, more critically, where we left the car. Amusingly, we were not the only ones in this predicament!
I recalled the spire. DH used his car keys to locate his vehicle.


The only surprise might be that we didn't ring any 'surprise'.  Others did, so I suppose that makes up for it. They were going to ring spliced Cambridge, Norwich and Bourne. But they hadn't got enough ringers who would admit to being able to ring Bourne, so they omitted that, which made it Bourne free... (groan).


Time to go home, so we did.
No surprise there....