Bellringer's Outing 2008

Let me show you some more photos: these are from the latest bellringer's outing, some time in October. We went with the Old Windsor band this year and unfortunately, the date clashed with the outing of the Guildford Diocesan Guild of Bellringers which we normally join. I would have loved to go with them, too, as they went to Cambridge this year! We went to Kent instead, ringing in four different churches - and very different they were. From the charming old style village church in Lympne which sits right next to the castle on an escarpment overlooking marsh and sea
to some more Victorian churches in New Church and Lydd, to a tiny village church in Brookland which has a wooden belltower separate from the church! Here is what the guidebook has to say about this curiosity: "St Augustine church is well known on account of the fact that it has a detached wooden bell tower. The tower is octagonal, and has a conical roof of three diminishing 'flounces'. Until 1936 it was covered in black tarred weatherboarding. It is believed the tower was built around 1260, and so is contemporary with the church itself."

Ringing inside Lympne and Brookland:
The startling red polo shirts are the team wear of the Old Windsor band and we were all supposed to wear them but it was rather a cold day so Sean and I had thick sweaters on top, and his father (middle of top photo) had clean forgotten...

The day's schedule was meeting at some horribly early time in Old Windsor from where Danny, the Tower Captain, conveyed us to Kent by minibus. It was a long slogging motorway journey through the foggy morning, only broken by a Little Chef coffee stop, and then a bit more interesting down tiny country lanes near the coast (some of them so small the minibus hardly fitted through!). We rang at two churches in the morning and then stopped for lunch in Dungeness. Dungeness is unlike any village or town I've ever been to in the UK: strewn out across a headland, most of which is a designated wildlife area, people seem to have built houses how and where they wanted - from clapboard to brick, all sizes and colours, some with neatly fenced off gardens staked out or an old boat by the side, some just thrown in amongst the dunes. A mini railway takes tourists around the nature reserve and of course where there are tourists there are hawkers - some of the houses had little stalls attached selling the usual array of cheap plastic beach ware. And somewhere amongst the lot sits the Britannia, a sort of old-style pub cum restaurant from the outside but done up like a ship inside. Everything was ship-like down to the menues and waitresses' shirts - obviously aimed at the kids.

This is where we had lunch - I took of course the vegetarian choice which was a lasagne and wasn't half bad. Everybody else had fish - the main item on the menu. Locally caught it said (and I couldn't quite see the wisdom in that as at the tip of the headland sits the big ominous bulk of a nuclear power station).
Right next to it is also the old lighthouse which is now a museum and for £3 a head we were allowed to climb the endless staircase to the top for a good view - of not a lot. The most interesting part was perhaps a series of caleidoscope mirrors fitted to the round inside walls:
The view from the top shows another Dungeness curiosity: it has two lighthouses. The old one (from which this photo is taken and which is now the tourist attraction) and the new one in the photo which is an automated working one.

The view also gives a bit of an idea of the strewn out houses although they get even sparser the further you go away from the "centre" of the village.
Then two more churches to ring at in the afternoon and another long drive back with a stop at the same service station... It was well dark by the time we got home!