Many congratulations and thank you to the members of the Ancient Society of College Youths, who rang an immaculately struck peal of Ytterbium Surprise Major on our bells on Monday 5 May 2025.

Details of the performance can be viewed on Bellboard here.

Some brief excerpts from the performance are shared below via Youtube.

​There are a number of extra ringing events taking place at St Milburga's church during the first week of May.

Firstly, on Sunday 4th May, instead of the usual ringing prior to the Evening Service, we will be ringing a Quarter Peal with friends from the wider Hereford Guild. (This follows an earlier Quarter Peal at Claverley to mark the final service at that church for their current vicar.) The ringing will take place from 5:30pm until the start of the service at 6:30pm.

Next, on Monday 5th May, we will be honoured to receive members of the Ancient Society of College Youths, a society founded in London in 1637 which arguably represents the cream of the bell ringing world. They will be ringing a full peal between 3pm and 6pm as part of their Shropshire peal weekend, and you will certainly notice the quality and precision of their ringing if you listen in!

Finally, on Thursday 8th May at 6:30pm, we will be ringing in unison with churches throughout the land to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day. This will be the local band ringing for 20 minutes. We hope that you will take a moment to listen in as we consider this important celebratory milestone.

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.