New on 20th September 2023
A peal is a continuous piece of ringing consisting of 5000 or more changes and may be rung for special occasions such as the Coronation of King Charles III or just for fun. Peals may be rung on church bells, handbells or even using virtual environments such as Ringing Room and Handbell Stadium. Peals can take as little as 1.5 hours on handbells, to around 4 hours on very heavy bells. Ringing a peal is regarded as a big challenge for a ringer, requiring mental and physical stamina.
The Association has a long history of peals being rung with the first being at Llandaff Cathedral on Saturday 25 November 1893. Over 4,700 have been rung (to January 2024) with over 3,500 ringers participating.
The first known peal rung in the Association area was at St Mary's, Monmouth on 14 December 1791. Although it is known that Grandsire Triples was rung, details of the ringers have not been found.
Some Association records are listed below (with links to the related details on Bellboard):
- Longest length peal was 10080 changes of Grandsire Doubles rung at Magor on 24/12/2000 and was conducted by David Price.
- Longest duration peal lasted 5h 26m which was 10000 changes of Double Norwich Court Bob Major rung at Llanfeugan on 3/7/1965 conducted by Brian J Woodruffe
- Quickest peal on handbells lasted 1h 26m and was rung in Newport on 3/9/1976 conducted by David C Everett.
- Quickest peal on tower bells lasted 2h 10m and was rung at Nash on 3/4/1961, conducted by David Pike
- Leading tower is Cadoxton with 339 peals (263 L&M)
- Leading peal ringer is Peter Bennett with 1103 peals rung; first peal 1/4/1967, 189 on handbells
- Leading conductor is also Peter Bennett, having conducted 567 peals, 28 on handbells and 2 jointly
Full details of all the Association peals are available on this website to download.
In addition, the Peal Recorder can provide ringers with the following reports containing full details of :
- all peals rang at a specific location (tower, handbell or virtual)
- all peals rung by a specific ringer
- all peals conducted by a specific ringer
- various bespoke reports for date ranges, methods, associations, composers, detail in footnote
If any errors in the peal details are found, please notify the Peal Recorder so that the data can be corrected.
