Stoke St Milborough’s 2025 Three Shires Tower Outing

The ringers at St Mary's, Kidderminster

It has been a longstanding tradition at Stoke St Milborough for our local ringers and friends of the tower to come together for a summer outing. This was halted during the COVID pandemic for obvious reasons and, in the subsequent years, one thing or another made it a bit too tricky to organise. For 2025, however, we finally managed to get our ducks in a row and organised a full day outing for Friday 1 August, visiting towers in three counties: Shropshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire. We had around 20 ringers of all ability levels in the group, so the day was structured to give as much variety as possible on rings with between six and twelve bells of varying weights and character.

The day started in the beautiful village of Worfield, not far from Bridgnorth. Assembling at 9:45am, we were eager to ring the heavy six here, which had not been rung a great deal in recent years, but which are now attracting more interest. Sadly the tower captain was unable to meet us at the last minute and the spare key was nowhere to be found, so the first ring of the day turned into a disappointing lock-out. Next time, hopefully! Nonetheless, we made the most of our brief visit by looking around the church of St Peter the Apostle, which has some truly stunning stained glass indicative of the wealth that must have been here in days gone by. It’s well worth the visit if ever you are in the area to ring or otherwise.

Only getting a brief stop at Worfield allowed us to move on earlier than scheduled to the next tower, All Saints at Claverley. The eight bells of Claverley, with their tenor weighing around 15 cwt, are very rewarding to ring, we found. Given that this was our first ring of the day, our learners adapted very well to a slightly heavier set of bells that they are used to at Stoke St Milborough. Rounds and Call Changes featured prominently in the repertoire here and everywhere throughout the day, but we had the personnel within the group to make a success of some nice Surprise Major.

After 50 minutes of ringing at Claverley, we dashed on to our next venue: St Mary the Virgin at Enville. These are another ring of eight with the tenor weighing 14 cwt, so not that different in theory to Claverley. In practice, they are not easy to ring evenly and our group had a challenge to keep them striking well. Nevertheless, we managed call changes and a few different methods before heading off for lunch and refreshments at the nearby Cat Inn. Enville Ales on draught along with an excellent food offering made it a great end to the morning and we all agreed that this place is to be strongly recommended. (A pint of Enville Ginger should be at the top of your beer bucket list!)

Our afternoon’s ringing began at the beautiful and historic St Peter’s in Kinver. The third ring of eight bells of the day with a tenor weighing a very manageable 12cwt, they proved to be delightfully easy to ring. They sounded magnificent outside too, with a beauty to match the dramatic outlook from the church, which perches above the famous cliffs of the town. We were pleased to have been able to start early here, having finished lunch ahead of the predicted time, and so we got over an hour of rope time in which to try out more methods including Plain Bob Triples, Stedman Triples, Yorkshire and Bristol.

A short drive down the hill to St Peter’s in Cookley came next, where we rang the lightest bells of the day. The ring of six here was cast by Taylor’s in 1995 and has a tenor weighing just over 5cwt. Being cast together as a full set, they sounded fully in tune and were easy to strike evenly. We were able to practise our usual six-bell repertoire of Doubles and Minor methods along with more Rounds and Call Changes to give our learners some experience of lighter bells than they usually encounter. They dealt with the flightiness admirably and were ready to move on to something altogether different…

The church of St Mary and All Saints in Kidderminster dominates the town and it was here that our day’s ringing would end. Its twelve bells, of which the tenor weights 25cwt, make a terrific sound which resonates throughout the surrounding area, and so we knew that we had to make a good impression for the thousands of locals who would be within earshot. Fortunately, we did ourselves proud, with Rounds and Call Changes on twelve for a mixed band of experienced and beginner ringers going successfully each time. Heavy though they are, the 2003 Taylor bells of Kidderminster are not too difficult to handle and so we were able to get into a good rhythm at each attempt. We even ventured into the territory of Grandsire Caters and Plain Hunt on eleven, the latter going particularly well. It was wonderful to see our learners having a go on twelve bells for the first time, and it would certainly be fair to say that they surprised themselves with their success.

Finally, after the obligatory team photo, we drove on to Cleobury Mortimer to close the proceedings with a curry at The Lamp. It was the perfect way to end a long but thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying day. We look forward to repeating it again next year and would like to extend our thanks to everyone who made it possible by giving us access to the towers, by running the ringing at each tower or by participating generally in the day.

If any of the above has piqued your interest, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us via our website www.stmilburga.co.uk and we will be delighted to welcome you to try your hand at ringing or simply to find out more about the history and practice of bell ringing as a historic art form native to England.

Ashley Smith

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