I noticed Remus Surprise Royal a few years ago, as a method with the backwork of Phobos Surprise Maximus but an easier right-place frontwork. At that time it had not been named, although the 2nds place lead end variation had (End of Exams Surprise Royal), and I had dreams of...

The winning streak came to an end, of course - we lost a quarter of York Maximus, which I might write about another time. But this evening we succeeded first time with Iddesleigh, which is one of the methods I wrote about last week. At the weekend I also...

After ringing a quarter of Sgurr a'Chaorachain yesterday, a new range of surprise royal methods begin to seem possible. They have a common style, with a simple rule-based backwork and a large region of regular frontwork. The gaps are filled in with a few "twiddly bits" at the interface between...

Sgurr a'Chaorachain Surprise Royal is basically a ten-bell version of Zanussi Surprise Maximus. It has gained some popularity in recent years and we have had some success ringing in in the tower at Scottish Association practices. It has just appeared on the menu for the Five o'Clock Handbell Club, at...

During the last few weeks, Tina and I have extended our handbell ringing circle to include Caroline, who was put in contact with us by Lesley Belcher (chair of ART). Caroline was confident ringing Plain Bob, so the idea was to progress towards Kent and Oxford and beyond. We worked...

This isn't particularly a handbell-related topic, although it is prompted by ringing (on handbells) the major, royal and maximus versions of the methods that I discussed in the previous article: Cambridge, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and especially Bristol. One of the things I find difficult about Bristol Royal and Maximus is the wrong...

With the Five o'Clock Handbell Club, we have been trying to ring another quarter of Bristol Maximus. I rang 3-4 in the first one, but now I have switched to 7-8. When I started practising with Mabel, I found it really difficult - so much so that it almost felt...

For completeness, here are the leads of the 5-6 position, although I'm starting to doubt whether there is much insight to be gained from going through this exercise for anything other than coursing and 3-4. First, here are the leads that involve an exceptional place bell.

Four of the remaining...

The leads of the 7-8 position can be classified similarly to those of the 9-10 position. First, the six leads that combine an exceptional place bell with a normal place bell.

The symmetrical lead has two sets of 9-10 places, finishing and starting at the half lead.

Two other...

In a previous article, quite a long time ago now, I classified the place bells of Cambridge Maximus as "normal" (containing a set of places) and "exceptional" (2nd, 3rd and 5th place bells). The idea is that if both of your bells are ringing normal place bells, then there is...