A guide to towers throughout the world with bells used for change ringing and other bells of interest.
First published in book form by Ronald H Dove in 1950, this is the online guide managed by the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, now extended to details of bells, frames, founders and projects. Find out more about Dove’s Guide…
The printed Dove’s Guide for Church Bell Ringers is on sale.
Grateful thanks are given to those who contribute additions or revisions. This includes bellringers, researchers and the bellfounding and bellhanging industry. Your support is vital to maintain the quality of this resource.
Updates can be submitted from the individual tower pages, or by email to the Dove Team. Please see our help pages for further information.
8 Dec: Lightweight rings
We are pleased to announce the inclusion of lightweight rings of bells in Dove, most of which are in private ownership. We are grateful to all those who have assisted in providing data, either directly or via the Mini Ring Directory. We have chosen a definition for this category of ring based on weight alone (hence our decision to refer to lightweight rings rather than mini rings). For rings of 3 to 8, lightweight rings have a tenor of 1 cwt or less. For rings of 10 this rises to 2 cwt and for rings of 12, to 3 cwt. To safeguard the privacy of private residences, we do not give the map co-ordinates for the location of these rings.
1 Dec: Welcoming Ryan Faulkner-Hatt to the Dove Team
We are pleased to welcome Ryan Faulkner-Hatt to the Dove Team. Ryan is a young ringer from Prittlewell in Essex and for some years a member of the Essex Young Eagles team in the Ringing World National Youth Contest. He has a particular interest in engineering and bell history and has been a regular contributor to Dove. He has joined the team to work on a new project, more of which will be announced in due course.
7 Jul: Great Bells of the British Isles
We are pleased to announce an addition to the scope of the towers listed in Dove. Readers of the printed version will be familiar with the list of Notable Bells of the British Isles
in the appendices, specifically all those over 40 cwt. The towers that hold these bells have now been incorporated into the web version and can be found here. There are currently 150 bells given in this list, headed up by the Olympic Bell in Queen Elizabeth Park, Stratford at almost 451 cwt. From this list, readers will also be able to see what other bells accompany these significant bourdons, such as quarter bells in clock chimes, or lighter bells in diatonic chimes, or whether the bells are simply hanging alone.