A bright sunny spring Saturday greeted the five Branch teams gathered in the east Cheshire village of Prestbury for the 2019 Guild 8-bell striking competition. Guild Master Ben Kellett introduced the judge Joe Waters who had travelled early morning from Yorkshire.
Joe provided these general comments: “A pleasure to listen to the ringing today all of good quality. Well done on choosing and sticking with Erin which has worked well. Mostly comfortable speeds but when they were pushed most teams were tripping over themselves. Front bells especially had problems [Ed: 1-4 were affected 5-7 were unaffected]. Scoring each row from nought to five where zero was immaculate and five was unrecognisable complete crunches”.
Ben Kellett announced the winners to be Chester Branch with 70 faults. He thanked Joe Waters for his good judgement also thanking Prestbury organiser Graham Jenkins and his team for the catering and managing the event. All acknowledged with a heartfelt round of applause from the members.
Joe Waters (L) with Simon Christian 
Wirral Branch team 
East branch team 
Mid Branch team 
South Branch team 
Chester Branch team
Competition place |
Team name |
Score |
Place in draw |
Peal speed |
Judge’s comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st |
Chester |
70 |
5th |
3h03m | A confident start and it settled and flowed with good rhythm throughout. Some clipping on the front recovered quickly and made for a very nice piece of ringing. |
| 2nd |
East |
74 |
2nd |
3h01m |
A good pace for the bells and settled well but sometimes tripped over themselves. Well executed throughout. One major method mistake but quickly sorted. |
| 3rd |
Mid |
122 |
3rd |
2h57m |
A confident pull-off and a quick peal speed but tripped a couple of times. Settled down and went well. |
| 4th |
Wirral |
152 |
1st | 3h11m |
Nervous and tentative at start and then relaxed. Hit a couple of rough patches which recovered quite well. Sometimes leading also caused issues. |
| 5th |
South |
233 |
4th |
2h59m |
Points reflect that they did not finish the test piece. A restart was allowed because the method was quite tricky. A comfortable speed but with method mistakes, nervous dodges and didn’t quite settle down but well done for persevering. |