HISTORY has been made in Pembroke this month with the ringing of the first ever peal on 10 bells at St Mary’s Pembroke. It was also the first peal on the newly rehung and augmented bells recently featured on The One Show.

A peal is the ‘gold standard’ change ringing performance during which the bells are rung continuously in over 5,000 different sequences, without visual aids, typically taking three hours.

The momentous occasion caused the Pembroke peal’s performance to trend in popularity, coming in third place of peals rung all over the country, after Chester Cathedral and St Paul’s Cathedral, according to ‘Bellboard’.

On Monday, April 6, the first peal on the rehung and augmented bells at St Mary the Virgin, Pembroke was 5039 Grandsire Caters, by Albert Tyler, marking the Guild’s 80th Anniversary and “remembering all the ringers who are no longer with us but would have liked to have seen the completed project.”

The treble bell (The Lingard family bell) was rung by Andrew Lingard, brother of Eldon. Andy learned to ring at Pembroke with Simon Rogers and has been very supportive of the project.

The second bell (The Rogers family bell given in memory of Simon and Philip Rogers) was rung by Jane Rogers, wife of Simon, daughter in law of Philip.

They were joined by Tower Captain Anne Bunker; Peter Hayward (conductor of the peal) who designed and oversaw the whole project; Simon Adams from Taylors Bell Foundry in Loughborough (who arranged the casting of the new bells); Michael Chester, Simon Rogers’ leading peal ringer (that means he rang more peals with Simon than anyone else; he rang 350 peals with him); and Simon Gordon, Alison and Ian Willgress and Ian Hastilow, all members of the St Davids Diocesan Guild of Bellringers.

The peal lasted 2 hours, 59 seconds.