A thousand years of history
Church bells stir emotions.
A glorious peal of bells at a wedding awakes feelings of joy, while the
slow tolling of a heavy bell speaks of sadness and death. Such sounds have echoed across the fields
around Cholsey, a typical English village near Oxford, for a thousand years.
In the monastery established in Cholsey before the Norman Conquest,
a bell would have sounded to call the monks to the divine offices. In medieval Cholsey the bells were believed
to possess magical powers, able to dispel storms and drive away evil spirits. They signalled warnings, festivals,
marriages, spiritual and other events, while the death knell sounded for those
no longer for this world.
Across the millennium, bell technology and the skill of the
ringers developed. For over 300 years
Cholsey’s church tower has been equipped for change ringing, allowing a
multitude of different melodies to be played upon a ring of 5, 6 and now 8
bells.