Women to ring quarter peal for new Archbishop

Women will ring the bells at Canterbury Cathedral to mark the historic appointment of the Church of England's first female Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dame Sarah Mullally was installed as leader of the Anglican church on Wednesday, in front of some 2,000 guests in the place of worship.

All 105 previous Archbishops of Canterbury had been men, starting with St Augustine in 597 AD. Women were allowed to become priests in the Church of England in 1994.

On Sunday, the all-female bell ringers from Kent will ring what is known as a quarter peal, a sequence of changes that will take nearly an hour.

Rona Joiner, ringing master for Rochester District, said: "You ring a certain number of changes or each bell goes 'dong' a certain number of times, in effect.

"That's going to be 1,344 changes, which is maybe about 50 minutes without stopping.

"The complication lies in the fact that you have to concentrate that whole time and not get it wrong."

Cathryn Hills, vice tower captain and bell ringer at Canterbury Cathedral, explained the challenge.

"They [the bells] are very heavy, you're talking about a tonne and a half," she said.

"So, [the weight of] a sizeable car you're swinging around above your head in pinpoint accuracy along with 11 other people, it's pretty skilful."

Liz Barnes, who rings at Wrotham, has seen the skill passed down generations and remembers her parents ringing at different enthronements, going back to Donald Coggan, who was appointed in 1974 and enthroned in 1975.

She said she rang the peal for Robert Runcie in 1980 with her late father.

"He was probably in a few of them," she said. "My father passed away last year but my mum is still alive."

According to its website, the cathedral has more than 20 bells, including those at the top of the Bell Harry tower, five in the North West tower, and Great Dunstan, its largest bell, which weighs over three tonnes and strikes the hour.

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