Thursday 3 July – ring across the county at 8.20pm for the Opening Ceremony. Cawthorne, Masham and Chapel Allerton pre-recorded along with Yorkshire Tykes band at Ossett.
Check the invitation on the Le Tour Yorkshire website below – “..a symbolic bringing together of the entire county to herald the beginning of Yorkshire’s Grand Depart..”
Ring a bell with us at your church, school, shop or on your bike. And if you don’t have a bell you can get an app to shake your phone and ring a bell. eg.
At 8.20pm the cameras will cut to Yorkshire bellringing. We are invited to ring from all our towers across the whole of Yorkshire.
With 52 practice nights that day anyway, we had a good start. Other bands are now rearranging their diaries to join us.
We will give a short coordinated burst of ringing from all towers at 8.20pm (this final time was confirmed on Monday 30 June).
I will share more info as it evolves here and on Facebook and Twitter @bellsandbikes and via the email group I use for Tower Briefings.
Please could you share this with everyone.
Please reply via Facebook or email rismay@virginmedia.com to confirm your involvement.
This is a wonderful chance to share Yorkshire bellringing with the world.
And it is for ALL towers in Yorkshire. Not just the race route. And for one bell, two bell and campanile towers. [ but if you live elsewhere you’d be welcome to pile in too 🙂 ]
Our invitation is to get the county ringing. (and the world! York in Australia and New York in America will be ringing Yorkshire too!)
Please also visit www.yorkshire.com for more news about Le Tour, the Grand Depart and the Opening Ceremony.
Pop it in your diary now. Maybe a quarter or peal to precede it too? Over to you
Its not all about the bells? Well of course it mainly is.
But back to cycling for a moment
Have you tried cycle touring? Have you spent a day exploring your neighbourhood by bike? Have you spent a week living on your bike on holiday? Please do have a go. You experience so many wonderful things on a bike that you just wouldn’t in a car – the sights from a different height, a different pace, the scents, the chat. I’m no pro cyclist. But I like my bike. And here’s one of my favourite photos as we crossed the Port d’Envalira into Andorra. This wonderful Pyrennean summit strangely decorated with two petrol stations. And yes that’s the same spotty top I wear most days!
West Tanfield has a most beautiful church and a very enthusiastic band who are at the heart of village preparations for Le Tour.
I met the band last August on a day scouting The Dales. We had a great time ringing and an equally fine pint next door. The village was already well into Tour plans a year ago. Check out their website below to see the huge range of events planned for the coming weekend. Bellringing will be one of many activities. Nice Post Office too 🙂
As we approach the final week before Le Tour de France, we have a double bill of Yorkshire bells on the way for you. Two towers, both on the race route.
On Sunday 29 June we have Chapel Allerton. 6 bells. 7cwt in B flat.
On Sunday 6 July we have York Minster. 14 bells. 59cwt in B flat.
Following our excitement at being invited to ring the bells of Yorkshire for the Opening Ceremony of the Tour de France on 3 July, we were delighted to welcome ITV Calendar News to come and find out more. And so on 18 June we chatted on camera outside Penistone church, met the enthusiastic local team from Cycle Penistone and then took the camera up the narrow spiral staircase to the bells.
Click here to see an excerpt from the interviews on ITV Player
Then click here to listen to 20 seconds of Penistone bells. This is an extract from 6 minutes of call changes. Call changes is where the order of the bells is changed by the conductor telling pairs of bells to swap with each other. The specific sequence you hear in this instance is called “Queens” 13572468.
And for the story in photos.
As a small crowd assembled there were rumours of an ITV van approaching.
The TV camera was soon set up and our Twitter master was soon lying on the floor looking up at the camera. Can’t resist those tricky angles
The interview was great. Colm was a very calm and clear interviewer. And when you’ve been planning bellringing for Le Tour for 18 months its not hard to think of a few things to say!
Colm filmed the ringers and then we went higher still. This is the second bell. The second lightest of the eight bells at Penistone. We rang it for him. Nice but loud!
Never tried looking down through the rope holes before. Well now I have.
With only 17 days to the Tour that means we must have had 83 days of the Yorkshire Festival already. Our filming with ITV seemed like a great reason for a formal presentation of a YFest badge to David.
Here’s the clock mechanism, bright and shiny. Whirring as the hour approached.
And here is the bellrope spider, which holds the rope ends to lift them safely out of reach when not being rung. Dennis carved it. And here he is.
I was 20 minutes early. Hey, I know, I’ll run down to Cycle Penistone. “They’re having a committee meeting” I was told. “Well I think they won’t mind being interrupted for this!” And in a matter of minutes Le Tour de Penistone was shaping up outside the lychgate.
Family fan club. My Mum is now an experienced YFest fan having attended The Grand Departs on Cragg Vale, The Bike Show at Barnsley Civic, Handmade Parade in Todmorden and Gary’s dry stone wall bike (of which more will be revealed in the coming days).
Not forgetting that there is still some tarmac to be laid for Le Tour
And despite The World Cup squeezing the half hour Calendar news down to 5 minutes today, here we were on TV. And online for fans worldwide.
All this happened because of bells being part of the Opening Ceremony of Le Tour on Thursday 3 July in Leeds. We are invited to get the bells ringing all across the county so please do join us. If you are church bellringer, please ring at the time to be confirmed between 8.30 – 9pm that evening. We welcome you to ring whether your tower has 1 bell or 12 bells or whatever. Please do join us to give a loud welcome to Le Tour.
And if you aren’t a ringer but have a bell or a bike bell or a bell app on your phone, you are welcome too. Let’s get ringing!
The Yorkshire Grand Depart Opening Ceremony promises to be the grandest opening in the Tour’s history, with global rockstars, cycling heros, international media and church bellringing. I mean could you ask for more.
Here are a few websites with more news about the Opening Ceremony to help you understand the scale and significance of it. As bellringers it is a huge privilege for us to be able to play a part in supporting this massive event as we welcome Le Tour de France to Yorkshire.
Executive producer Martin Green, who was Head of Ceremonies at the London 2012 Olympics, said: “We’re breaking new ground here for the Tour de France with this ambitious show – it’s something much bigger and completely new to the cycling world. With the theme of the event The People of Yorkshire Welcome the World, this will give the riders the entrance they deserve as the Yorkshire Grand Départ celebrations begin.”
As all eyes turn to the new West End production of that TV favourite “All Creatures Great and Small”, so Yorkshire bellringing fans may remember 1990…
That was the year the cameras came to Grinton church to film part of the final episode of the series.
Grinton, of course, is reinforcing its credentials now as the church at the foot of one of the key climbs of Stage 1 of this year’s Tour de France in Yorkshire.
Here’s the church and the ringing footage from 1990.
GrintonGrinton Filming All Creatures 1of2Grinton Filming All Creatures 2 of 2
bells and bikes 