Here's the latest news from St Mary's with their A Churchwarden writes column as Candlemas brings Christmas to a close and the Platinum Jubilee Year begins

Let the Bells Ring out and flags fly

To celebrate the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne on February 6, 1952, the St Mary's bellringers will be attempting a marathon 'quarter peal' of the Bells.

This will take place before choral evensong on Sunday, starting at 530pm and will take just under an hour.

The feat was last performed before lockdown, and will need all the skills of the experienced ringing team to perform.

The Union Jack flag will also fly from the Tower.

The art of bellringing requires scientific brain

Bellringing is not a skill required of Churchwardens, but we have one who is skilled in it.

Bellringing may be an art, but it needs a scientific or mathematical brain to master it.

A 'change' is each bell ringing once.

A full 'peal' of bells is defined as 5040 changes, so even a quarter peal is 1260 different changes.

Depending on the number of ringers available, either 8 bells or 10 bells will be rung.

The method, or 'tune' is likely to be Plain Bob triples or Plain Bob caters.

Plain Bob is the name of the method.

Triples and caters indicate how many bells are ringing the method. Triples is 7 bells, caters is 9 bells.

The 8th, or 10th, bell will be the last bell to be heard in each change and helps to keep the rhythm.

The bells are tuned to different notes in a scale, and the weight of a bell tends to increase as the note becomes deeper.

St Mary's has what is called a 'ring' or set of 12 bells in the scale of E.

We can ring fewer than 12 and still make a musical sound by selecting appropriate notes or bells from the scale.

We have a 13th bell so that we can ring 8 lighter bells, this time on the scale of B.

The Bells were taken down from the Tower and repaired, some being recast, in 2013.

You should be able to hear them over most of the town so keep listening or come along.

On the St Mary's website (see links below) there is a new page with more information about the Bells, and about how to join the ringers.

Service

At our informal, shorter Service at 10am on Sunday, the congregation will have candles to hold, and they are lit to mark Candlemas.

Falling forty days after Christmas (on February 2 this year) it was celebrated as the official end of Christmas from medieval times, and commemorates the presentation of the child, Jesus, in the Temple of Jerusalem.

According to some sources, Christians began this tradition as early as the 4th Century, and the lighting of candles represents the light of Christ in the world. Medieval Hitchin looked forward to the feast days of the Church for many reasons, and some say Candlemas was always another chance to have pancakes.

Our Choral Evensong at 630pm will also have candlelight and wonderful music from the St Mary's Choir to follow the ringing of the bells (but no pancakes sadly).

You can watch the evening service live or later on our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/stmaryshitchin and you can still enjoy the previous weeks services in the archive.

Next time….Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday….

Further details of our services and events are found on our public Facebook page @StMarysChurchHitchin