Numbers in Nottingham

Submitted by simon on

On Thursday the handbell band in Beeston, Nottingham, rang a quarter of Numbers Royal. Recall that this is Christian Peckham's idea of ringing blocks of plain hunting at the front or back, while the bells at the other end of the change dodge in pairs. Every block of plain hunting is rung until the bells involved reverse their order, which is the same thing as saying it's rung until the handbell pairs come back together, and then the method changes to a different block of hunting.

We rang a quarter of Numbers Royal in Glasgow, which I composed by using a computer search based on a cyclic plan with Ten (plain hunting on 10, i.e. Original) in alternate positions to break up the dodging. In that blog post I also described a composition of Numbers Maximus by Christian, and slightly regretted not having tried to produce something by hand myself.

The composition for the Beeston quarter is by Adam Wilmott. It's based on the original 5-part touch with the calling 4, 5, 6, 7. Here is the composition - maybe a little easier to call than mine.

1256 Spliced Royal (5m)
Adam Wilmott (complib 142576)

             1234567890
-----------------------
4,5,6,7      9012345678
4,5,6,7      7890123456
4,5,6,7      5678901234
4,5,6,7      3456789012
8,5,8        4312789056
4,5,6,7      5643127890
4,5,6,7      9056431278
4,5,6,7      7890564312
4,5,6,7      1278905643
8,5,8        2143905678
4,5,6,7      7821439056
4,5,6,7      5678214390
4,5,6,7      9056782143
4,5,6,7      4390567821
8,4,5,4,8    3421567890
-----------------------
4 part.

I happened to be  looking at BellBoard just as the quarter was published, and saw that it had a footnote as the first quarter of 4567s (which is how they refer to it). The only member of the band whose email address I could find was Tim Peverett, so I emailed him, and he replied immediately to say that the footnote was being amended. It now notes the first quarter of 4567s in England!

Handbell compositions
Royal (10 bells)

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