For many, Thursday was a day of travelling to one of the most northerly locations for a WC tour - Hexham in Northumberland. The tour kicked off with a peal of Superlative Surprise Major at St John's in Newcastle City Centre on the Thursday evening. Timing was rather unfortunate for Roger Grieve who arrinved in the 'nick of time' but had to start ringing immediately following a 6hr+ drive for coffee or other suitab;e refreshment. However, come 9pm or threabouts, the said peal was scored.
Meanwhile other less keen ringers went off to 'suss out' our accommodation - a scout hall around the back of the village Acomb before goin on to see what the village pubs had to offer. A suitable venue was identified and gradually iy started to fill up with Welsh College members as they arrived from various parts of the land.
Friday morning began with a hearty English breakfast brilliantly prepared by Pat & Karen before on to the first tower of the day - St Oswin, Wylan. These were a heavy6 but were managed well, even having a succesful attempt at one of the special methods of the tour - Hexham Surprise Minor.
Apprehensions however grew as we made our way to the 2nd tower - St James Newtonm Hall where a reputation had been rumoured around the society that they were unringable. he nervous apprehension only increased as we found we couldn't get into thr tower. Some time later after sitting around in the Sprin sunshine the problem was solved and the key duly arrived. Fortunately rumour was worse than reality and some admirable ringing was achieved here. The only difficulty really being the 'superflous' sally on the tenor for any ringer over about 5ft! Kneeling to ring seemed to do the trick though.
Before lunch was our first 8 of the day as we travelled into Durham to the town of Consett. These were OK bells but nothing particularly special. Various forms of lunch ensued from sandwiches to Pub before off for a leisurely afternoon - 2 towers.
The first tower of the afternoon was St Cuthbert, Allendale and these were a very fine ring of 8 which whisked around very well. What can only be described as an excellent touchof 8 spliced was ring here - surprising given it was straight after lunch!
There then followed our afternoon gap where a variety of activities were undertaken. A group of us decided that Hadrian's wall could not be missed when in this part of the county and so we took a treck along 1 part of it just outside Hexham. The scenery was stunning and we walked until the sun started to set. Others ventured out to see some tree or other which was used in a recent Kevin Costner film - Robin Hood I think!
We all the started to meet again at Hexham Abbey for ringing on the grand bells. However before we all arrived disaster struck! Judith, for some reason known only to herself, decided to dislodge the clapper out of the 4th bell, but not only content with that hurtled it through the wheel of the 5th and through the clock mechanism. How she managed this from the ringing chamber with the aid of only a bell rope nobody knows! Ringing therefore abruptly ceased and a hast retreat was beat towards the Mariner's Arms at Acomb.
Saturday was to be a day of travelling and started off unusually with a continental breakfast of croissants and crumpets. This proved to be very popular and saved on loads of washing up especially the scambled egg saucepan!
We started our ringing at Cramlington where Hexham S Minor received another airing. We then moved onto the unusual ring at Morpeth (Tanya's home town). Here the bells are in the watch tower right in the centre of the town in the middle of the road! They are a genuinely secular ring.
We then travelled the considerable distance over beautiful countryside to Rothbury for the 'ok'8 before heading off to Bamburgh for lunch. Here we were joined by Andy Richman who had travelled down from Aberdeen to meet us. Our ringing at Bamburgh included Newcastle Surprise Major which was succesfully negotiated, but the main issue at the tower was what had happened to our sweep stakes on the Grand National? But oh! Disaster - news filtered through that there had been a false start at Aintree and therefore the race was declared null and void! Oh well - on with the ringing. Our journey to the final tower of the day took us past the splendid castle at Bamburgh which runs along the coast. It is an amazing sight, particularly the steep brick walls which run along the side of the road
Once installed at Embleton we rang the unusual methods of Orpheus Doubles and Superlative Surprise Minor to provide some variation and spice.
Saturday evening back at the hall and we held the usual meeting to decide on the dinner tour. Helen, having done her homework well, succeeded in persuading the crowd for a hotel venue in Wales. Pat & Karen cooked a splendid meal before we adjourned to the pub once again for the last time.
Sunday morning split the gathering between Hexham Abbey (less the 4th!) and Newcastle Cathedral - we all then joined up again to ring at the recently rehung bells at St Matthew, Newcastle. We had all been warned to watch our cars carefully since this was a rather dodgy area of Newcastle. All proved OK although we unfortunately had only 1/2 hour to ring here (in between services), but their bells were by far the best on tour. The lower, led by David Hird, was an outstanding piece of ringing which will not be forgotten for some time.
The convoy then headed South to Durham for a wander around , lunch in ' The Swan' before our last ring of the tour - Durham Cathedral for evensong. Most memorable here was the 243 steps to the ringing chamber. The bells were not particularly easy but some Plain Bob Royal and Grandsire Caters proved quite acceptable.
The usual sad farewell thenensued before the majority of us headed south to our respective homes.
- Chris Mundy.
A further tour report, written by Susan Watson, appeared in The Ringing World number 4290, July 16, 1993 page 706.