One of our regular ringers, Sue Cornah, has spoken to BBC Radio Shropshire about the well of St Milburga and the legends surrounding the saint. You can listen to the broadcast here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0l3kgsx
and we have a link to it on our Church page here https://www.stokestmilborough.info/church.html which has lots of other interesting background info.

​We are delighted to be featured on today's episode of Radio 4's Bells on Sunday.

Here is the text which accompanies the recording:
​
Bells on Sunday comes from the church of Saint Milburga in Stoke St Milborough, Shropshire. The village and church take their name from Saint Milburga, the early eight century Abbess of Wenlock Priory, whose feast day is the 23rd February. The church has thirteen bells in total including a recent ring of eight bells cast by the Allanconi foundry in Italy, which were tuned and installed by Matthew Higby and Company in 2020. The tenor bell weighs just over twelve hundredweight and is tuned to the note of G. We hear them ringing “Stoke St Milborough Surprise Major”.

Click the link to listen on BBC Sounds >
​www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002899s

Special thanks to Phillip Orme for making this possible

(The performance from which this recorded excerpt was taken can be viewed on Bellboard here)

A fine festive time was had by all when we hosted our Come Chime With Me event for the villagers of Stoke St Milborough on Thursday 19 December 2024. Ashley tied the clappers to make them easy to chime and Martin worked out in advance which Christmas carols would work with the major scale of our eight bells. Sixteen brave souls ventured out into the cold to come and have a go, with Martin conducting. They took to it like ducks to water... or rather, like reindeer to snow... and the mulled cider and festive snacks helped to keep the spirits high and the energy up.

Donations of £41 were received for the benefit of the Church and we will look forward to hosting the event again next year. We wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

One of our villagers, Jerry H, has recently embarked upon an MA course in Photography. As part of his practical work, he recently came to photograph the bells and the ringers, focusing on the themes of Movement and Sound. You can view a selection of his fabulous pictures by downloading the document below.

There are two churches with ringable bells that are dedicated to St Milburga. One of them is our own church at Stoke St Milborough and the other one is in Beckbury, near Bridgnorth. St Milburga is most closely associated with Much Wenlock, where she was Abbess of the Priory at the end of the 8th Century. The Abbey's lands supposedly once included both Beckbury and Stoke St Milborough.

On Monday 21 October 2024, a group of us rang a brand new method for the first time at the church of St Milburga in Beckbury and we named it St Milburga Delight Minor. Ashley Smith devised the method itself and Martin Scott conducted the composition. After a handful of false starts, we eventually got through it without incident and it sounded rather nice! Hopefully others will try ringing the method and we will certainly aim to ring it in our own church of St Milburga before too long!

A very enjoyable day and special thanks to Andrew Gordon, Ringing Master for Beckbury, for allowing us to ring the bells.

Click the link below to view the performance on Bellboard

https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1778341

On Friday 30 August 2024, a quarter peal of a brand new method was rung at St Milburga's for the first time. The method, now named Stoke St Milborough Surprise Major, was devised by Martin Scott, who also conducted the quarter peal with a band of ringers from The Hereford Diocesan Guild of Bellringers.

Members of the band agreed that the composition used produced a lot of pleasant "music" that made it enjoyable to ring. An excerpt of the performance can be heard by clicking the video below. Thanks to Stewart and Helen Sharp for recording the performance and to Henry Lewis, without whom none of this would ever have been possible.

Details of the performance are featured here on Bellboard.

Bell ringers around the country participated in a national initiative on or around 6th June 2024 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. At St Milburga's, we rang Rounds and Call Changes and Plain Bob Doubles with our local band from 6:30pm to 7:00pm on Thursday 6th June, before joining the wider community for an evening at the village hall.

Further details of this and all the other performances given around the country can be viewed here > bb.ringingworld.co.uk/event.php?id=19031

On Friday 31 May 2024, a peal of Nottingham 8-Spliced Surprise Major was rung successfully at St Milburga's Church with some excellent striking throughout. The methods were Bristol, Cambridge, Cassiobury, Cornwall, Glasgow, Lessness, London & Superlative. Here is a link to the composition that was used 

Youtube clips from the performance can be viewed below and more clips are accessible in this Google Photos album.

Congratulations to all of the ringers involved and especially to Stuart, for whom this was the 700th peal as conductor.