Grateful thanks are given to those who contribute additions or revisions, which are vital to maintain the quality of this resource. This includes bellringers, researchers and the bellfounding and bellhanging industry.

Please submit authoritative revisions either through the individual tower pages, or via email to the Dove Team. Please check whether the matter is addressed through our FAQs and follow our Conventions and other Help Pages (Description and Editing).

30 Mar: Projects and overhauls brought into the new system

We are pleased to announce that work to capture and display information on bell restoration projects and overhauls has now been transitioned into the new Dove system. This is an area that was outstanding when the bulk of the data management was brought into the new system from the old. In the past 3 months we have had to use a manual process to keep this information up to date, so this represents an overall improvement in this service to readers. While there is little new data, this work has allowed us to connect projects with overhaul flags, and ultimately will form the basis of an audit trail in the history of a tower or ring of bells.

15 Mar: Names of rings, towers and bells

Where a place has rings or other collections of bells in different towers, or where a ring of bells is known by a particular title such as The Royal Jubilee Bells or The Bells of Congress, Dove can now display this information in the header bar of the relevant rings. We are also able to start capturing the christened or popular names of bells which is currently only visible by hovering the cursor over the bell number, but will in due course feature more overtly. Canterbury Cathedral is a good example of both of these new features. While these functions have only been released today, the associated data will take some time to be uploaded.

18 Feb: Improving the look of Dove’s Guide on different devices

We are pleased to welcome David Giles to the Dove Development Team. David is working to optimise the website for different devices. We hope that the first of his new improvements will be appreciated by mobile phone and tablet users.

7 Feb: New data exchange with Felstead established

Dove’s Guide has now reached an agreement with the Felstead database resulting in a regular data exchange. This now allows Felstead records to link directly into Dove, while readers of Dove will be able to see at a glance, on each tower detail page, how many peals have been rung at that tower. This is in addition to the existing link to more details of these peals. Thanks go to both development teams for making this happen.

5 Feb: The Church of England invests its bell interests in Dove’s Guide

An agreement has been reached between the Church Buildings Council (CBC) of the Church of England (CofE), and Dove’s Guide, concerning the future collection and maintenance of data on bells and bellframes in their jurisdiction. The CBC has an interest in church fixtures and fittings to underpin their advice to parishes, cathedrals, chancellors and advisory bodies. To this end they established the Church Heritage Record (CHR) database, part of which involved the recording of details of bells and frames. In addition to the information on full circle rings, Dove’s Guide has also been collecting information on other bells in the UK. Rather than have these two groups building and maintaining registers with the same information, the CBC has agreed to share its data to allow Dove to move forward with the new Dove Bell Register. In return Dove will work to maintain the quality of this information and extend the record to cover the rest of the CofE. We’ll do that using the valuble contributions from the ringing community, reviewed and managed by the Dove Team, that has led to Dove becoming the quality resource that it is. The CBC will be able to use the Dove Bell Register as part of its Church Heritage Record to use the information to support its valuble work in the CofE and society. In terms of approximate numbers, the CHR has data on 54k bells in 14k churches while Dove has 39k bells in 6k churches. The CHR has data on 675 bellframes in 673 churches, while Dove has 7k frames in 6k churches. The data in the CHR originates from the extensive collection of information by George Dawson, which itself has benefitted from submissions by a wider number of people, either directly or via Dove. The establishment of the Dove Bell Register therefore owes much to the careful interest and time given by all these people, as will its continued maintenance.