WE DID IT!!! World bell-ringing record broken at Liverpool Cathedral
18 November 2008
The bells rang out for Liverpool Cathedral as a world record was broken by its ringing team.
It took nearly five hours of continuous ringing on Saturday 15th November 08 to break the record for the heaviest eight-bell peal ever rung – another first in this amazing year of culture for the city.
Although Liverpool Cathedral already has the highest and heaviest peal of bells in the world, it was the first time the team had attempted a “full peal” using the back eight bells.
The now record-breaking heaviest 8 bell peal ever rung takes the record from Exeter Cathedral, a record which has stood for over a hundred years.
While the ringing was on 8 bells there were actually 9 ringers present, as two ringers (a Father and Daughter combination) rang the Tenor (heaviest) bell. On the day, ringing started at 10.00 am and lasted 4 hours 43 minutes.
- A full peal consists of ringing at least 5000 changes and the ringers are not allowed to stop or repeat a previous change.
- The record was broken using the Cambridge Surprise Major peal.
- Liverpool Cathedral has the heaviest peal of bells in the world hung for ringing in the traditional English style.
- The bells were installed in 1951.
- Any heavy bell records created at Liverpool will now remain until a heavier set of bells is cast and installed and this is highly unlikely due to cost and finding a building capable of taking a peal of bells of such weight.
- The Tenor bell at Liverpool weighs 82 hundredweight (just over 4 tons).
- The Tenor bell at Exeter is the second heaviest ringing bell in the world and weighs 72 hundredweight and is therefore half a ton lighter than Liverpool’s.