Arthur Craven's headstone

While preparing my video about Yorkshire Maximus, I discovered that Arthur Craven, who composed Yorkshire Major and its extensions, is buried in Sheffield and has a marvellous headstone. Last weekend I happened to be in Sheffield visiting my sister, and we decided to go and find the grave.

Arthur Craven is also mentioned in my video about Bristol, as he was involved in the discussion about how to extend it from major to royal - although I'm not absolutely sure he was the originator of the extension as this obituary suggests.

Visiting Craven's grave was a bit of reconnaissance for an evolving idea. As the Central Council meeting and Ringing Roadshow will be taking place in Sheffield during the first weekend in September, I am hoping to assemble a handbell band to ring some Yorkshire next to the grave. Maybe even a quarter of either major or royal. In a while I will try to use the magic of Facebook to recruit ringers, but meanwhile if anyone is expecting to be within range on Saturday 6th September and would like to join in, please let me know.

A week after the previous attempts, we got together again and succeeded.


Scottish Association
Glasgow
1 Albany Quadrant
Sunday, 11 October 2015 in 2h40 (15C)
5152 Spliced Surprise Major (23m)

224 each Ashtead, Bristol, Cambridge, Cassiobury, Cornwall, Cray, Double Dublin, Glasgow, Ipswich, Jersey, Lincolnshire, Lindum, London, Preston, Pudsey, Rutland, Superlative...

On Friday evening we had our first attempt for the peal of 23-spliced. We didn't get it, but we got well into the 5th part, with mostly very good ringing. That's more of it than we have rung in one go before, so although it was disappointing not to reach...

So, this past weekend we had an intensive weekend of 23-spliced practice with Jonathan and Angela, starting on Friday evening and continuing through to Sunday afternoon.  It was a great success and pushed us much farther forward than we expected.

Our aim was to just keep working as far as...