Peals

A peal is a piece of ringing which, on six bells, contains at least 5040 changes. To ring a peal is a significant achievement and they are usually rung for pleasure and often with footnotes recording special events.

They are performed by highly skilled ringers and require physical and mental stamina to last the duration, which at Great Gransden is for about three hours.

The first peal on the bells was in 1908, when a team, mainly from from St Neots rang the first on the bells. They rang seven different methods and the peal was conducted by Charles Lilley. Charles was actual from Bedford but regularly rang with the St Neots ringers. The peal took 2 hours and 54 minutes.

The next peal wasn’t until 1930 and was of Norwich Surprise Minor. Conducted by Frank Warrington fom Over, the other ringers being from different towers in the area.

In 1932 a peal was rung and the band included a Great Gransden ringer, Herbert Sherman. He was from Great Gransden and moved away to Southill in Bedfordhsier where he learned to change ring. Some of the other ringers were from Bedfordshire too.

It wasn’t until 1961 when the next peal was rung. Leonard Jefferies, a local ringer achieved his first peal, helped by ringing friends from other towers.

There were three peals rung in the 1960s and the a gap until the 1990s when another three were rung, all of Surprise Minor. The bells were re-hung in 2000 and fifteen have been rung since then.

More details of the peals will be uploaded to this website in due course. Summary details can be found here.