The Lilliputters Guild Summer Tour 2023 – Day 1

00:00 - St Brides Major
03:20 - Llantwit Major

Following a roaring return of Summer Tour in 2022, the 2023 iteration saw us return to South Wales, based once again at the Miskin Mill Scout Village. Fuelled by Captain Michael's offering of bangers and mustard mash, we kicked off Tour in our traditional manner – the Monday evening visit to two local towers. Ironically, despite both names containing "Major", they only had six bells at each!...

As in 2022, the bells to open our week ended up being one of the favourites for the entire Tour – the fantastic ring at St Brides Major. A complete Taylor six cast in 1939, during the foundry’s golden years, they are every bit as good in person as they look on paper; they sound excellent (albeit a bit quiet outside), and handle very smoothly. We christened a new Doubles variation here – Clungey Cloonj, which is Union Bob with Jingle Knockers Singles (yes, really!). This, and the lower (from outside) are featured here.
https://dove.cccbr.org.uk/tower/13771

Whilst the evening’s other tower, Llantwit Major, had a lot to live up to, they were nonetheless a perfectly pleasant ring in their own right. A complete 1908 Mears & Stainbank (Whitechapel) offering, they looked like they had had some work done recently, although some bells (notably the second) were extremely oddstruck. We did have a disaster at pull off, when the bell we had thought was the treble turned out to be the tenor – oops! The church is a fascinating, ancient building, well worth a visit. Whilst some parts date from the Norman period, a Celtic church existed on the site before even this. The church has on display a number of Celtic stones – pillars dating from between the 9th and 11th centuries – remnants from this original building. The ringing featured here includes Grandsire Doubles and Plain Bob Minor, although a nice touch of St Clement’s concluded our time here.
https://dove.cccbr.org.uk/tower/16963

Arriving back at Miskin Mill, our evening concluded with the traditional card games, although the pudding competition was postponed until Day 2. Did this lack of cake affect us as we ventured out towards Swansea? Did we suffer a dip in the quality of bells as we headed West? Stay tuned for Part 2, coming to a YouTube channel near you soon!... :-)