Help: Searching
The results are presented in "pages". Before starting your search, you may find it helpful to estimate the number of matches that are likely to result. You will notice that, when the 'search' webpage itself opens (as opposed to the 'home' page), absolutely every tower has already been "found" and the first page of 10 is presented.
Either leave the search window blank, or enter (the first few letters) of one of:
- a place name;
- a dedication;
- a word or phrase which you might expect to find within "additional information" about a ring (but not within the information about, or description of, a bell);
- a British post code other than IM, JE, GY or BT;
- an Great Britain National Grid reference (ie, 2 letters followed by 4, 6, 8 or 10 digits);
- an five digit number, which is treated as a Dove tower ID; or
- an four digit number, which is treated as a TowerBase ID.
and press the "Go" button.
See the help page on conventions for a full explanation of the abbreviations and conventions used within the search results.
Clicking on the placename will display details of the entry for that tower. As with the search results, links are provided from the details page to the mapping facility and also (by clicking on the grid reference itself) to a search for towers relatively close by. Such additional information as we have about each bell of the ring is provided in a table of details.
Should you wish to limit the search in some way, then it is often possible to do so using the additional fields. Further information is provided below.
It is possible, also, to sort your results. At the foot of the search panel, there are two fields which (except in the case of a 'distance search') control the sorting. If these fields are not amended from their default values (Place, Asc), your results will be displayed in alphabetical order of place name. It is possible also to sort primarily on tenor weight, on practice night, or number of bells. And, in addition, your specified sort can be in ascending mode (ie, A..Z, 0cwt..82cwt, Sun..Sat, 3..16) or its converse, ie, descending. When, within a sort, two or more entries have the same 'primary' sort value, 'sub-sorting' is done on ascending place name.
It is possible to select certain pages without visiting each and every page in sequence: the 9 page numbers including the 'present page' are displayed, also the first and last, as is also a slide bar when more than 9 pages are needed to display all results.
Searching by Name
The search will look at certain "fields" from the database to see if a match can be made. Capital and lower case letters are treated alike; spaces and hyphens are treated alike. The match will "start" from the beginning of the field, or from a space character within one of the fields. Alternative place names are now included in the database extract and so should also be found although the reason for their being found may not be obvious until one looks at the Details page. The fields searched upon are: the place name, the 'sub-place' name, and any alternative name that we have on record for the place. The dedication and the additional information fields will also be searched.
Examples of searches:
| search string | typical result | explanation of why the search succeeds or fails |
| Whitstable | Whitstable, All Saints | note that each is the exact entry shown in the full listing |
| Whitstable, S Alphege | ||
| York | Camberley, Surrey | perhaps an unexpected result: however, the sub-place begins with the string "York" |
| New York, USA | (possibly) an expected result | |
| West Hallam, Derbys | another (possibly) unexpected result but note that the dedication includes the selected string | |
| York Minster, N Yorks | probably one of the expected results | |
| York, WA | the Australian tower is also found | |
| tun | Tunbridge Wells | (possibly) an expected result |
| many other entries where ... | ... the word "tuning" appears under "Additional information" | |
| Spilsby | Langton by Partney, Lincs | perhaps an unexpected result, but it is also known as Langton by Spilsby |
Searching by (four digit) Number
Should you know it, it is possible to use the TowerBase tower number as a (pseudo) place name. For such a search, a second column is interpolated, re-stating the TowerBase number, the number which also used to identify that tower in the Felstead peals database.
Searching by Grid Reference or Latitude/Longitude Coordinates
You can either search using a Great Britain grid reference, or by clicking on the grid reference, or latitude and longitude of a tower.
Sorting criteria are ignored when performing a 'distance search' (ie, one based on a grid reference or from a given set of coordinates): the results are ordered by distance from the selected 'point', and selection is done merely on the chosen radius. To revert to a 'conventional search', click the Reset link.
When performing a distance search, a second column is added into the results, indicating the distance in miles from the search centre together with its bearing. You should bear in mind that distance searches ignore not only terrain but also any intervening coastline: journey times may well be noticeably longer than might be inferred simply from 'crow-flying' distance and the speed of your vehicle!
| search string | typical result found | explanation of why the search succeeds |
| ST156781 | Llandaff Cathedral | this tower, the 'search centre', is located at that grid reference |
| (20 miles radius) | Brean, Somerset | this tower is "across the water" at the distance stated |
Your results can be downloaded for use with satellite navigation systems and it is possible also to plot them on your computer screen: simply click on the Map it
link for the tower at the centre of the search.
We now measure and store grid references to 4 significant digits in easting and northing, ie, down to the 10m level, even though we only show them truncated to the 100m level. Prompted by Steve Scanlon's comparable work on Worcestershire towers - which we have used and gratefully acknowledge - this was decided upon so that, when transferring to the mapping facility, the church location can be shown more accurately (this becomes more important as the map scale gets larger and as GPS devices become more common). We will be grateful to be advised of any incorrect refinements.
The presentation of results uses standard web functionality. Thus, if a tower has its own web page (and we know about it), the URL of the link to that page will also be returned, either as part of a search result or when viewing the full details for the ring, thus enabling a quick transfer to be made to the relevant page - and in a new window (so that you can always easily return to Dove).
'Fuzzy' Searches
When searching by name, it is possible to use what are known, in computing terminology, as 'wildcards'. The question mark character ? will be used to match any one, and only one, character in the target string; the asterisk character * will match any number (including zero) of characters.
Thus searching for a place name using the string "L??nd" would locate Llandaff (as well as many other results), as would "L*nd". Use of this latter string will also locate London. Another example is that both Lichfield and Leicester will be returned when searching on "L*ic". Judicious use of wildcards can sometimes help when the exact spelling of a place name is not known, or indeed may have altered over the course of time. (For example, what is now shown as Sweffling on the OS map, and is therefore now in Dove as that, was previously shown in both as Swefling: try "Sw*l" and see what towers are matched - and decide exactly why! Does "*fling" provide a unique result?) Do always remember, though, that the matched string in the target must either appear at the start of the entry or immediately follow a space within it.
Searching using a UK Postcode
It is also possible to search using a complete British postcode. Note that it does not work with IM, JE, GY or BT postcodes.
Exact matches
If the search string begins with =
then the remainder of the search string must match the entirety of the DoveID, place name or dedication. Wildcards may still be used.
Restricting Your Search
Considerable additional functionality is possible through being able to constrain a search - which itself may always be against a 'null string', implying 'all towers' - to some subset, depending upon the contents of one or more other fields of the database extract. This enables some non-trivial searches to be undertaken. The fields are as follows:
Country or CountyA 'drop down' list is provided, the first entry of which is 'blank', implying an unrestricted search. You can specify any particular country or any particular county of the British Isles by selecting the appropriate list item.
DioceseThe first entry of the 'drop down' list is 'blank', implying 'all dioceses'. This database field has been populated with the range of values shown in the drop down list - as far as we have been able to ascertain 'ownership' information for each tower, and our present conclusion may simply be wrong! The 'non religious' categories are admittedly somewhat arbitrary. For example, 'Secular Tower' has usually been used where some sort of 'public' ownership is involved as opposed to 'Private Ownership'. All Scottish and all non-RC Irish towers have been placed in their own respective 'pseudo diocese', as have all Roman Catholic churches. Those in other denominational places of worship (for example: Orthodox, URC, Methodist, undenominational) have been treated as 'Not Anglican'. We invite submissions drawing attention to any mis-assignments we have made, remembering that only one category may be specified for any given tower.
PracticeA 'drop down' list is provided, the first of which is 'blank', implying 'all entries'. To enable a search to be carried out for towers where practice information has been supplied to us, select either the day concerned, or 'yes' for any unspecific day; 'n/k' returns those towers for which we have no information about any regular practice.
Ringable, Ground Floor, Simulator, ToiletThe first, 'blank', item of each of these (independent) 'drop down' lists implies 'all entries'. To enable a search to be carried out only for those towers which have the relevant flag set, select the Yes option. Conversely, if your search is to be restricted to those entries where that flag is not set, select the No option.
BellsA 'drop down' list is provided, the first entry of which is 'blank', implying 'any number of bells'. The category '12+' implies 12s and above. To exclude rings of 3 from your results the 4+ option should be selected, and to exclude 3s and 4s choose the 5+ option.
KeyThe first entry of the 'drop down' list is 'blank', implying 'any keynote, including none'. The category 'n/k' will select those towers where no keynote is known by us.
TenorThree fields are provided, the second of which enables you to stipulate a tenor weight in order to restrict the search: leaving it blank will imply no such restriction. The third field enables that weight to be expressed either in imperial or metric units. The first field defines any comparison to be made: 'less than or equal to' the stated weight; 'equal to' the stated weight; or 'greater than or equal to' that weight. When making the 'exact' comparison, results to within 5% of your choice will be returned.
Bell detailsWhen searching using this constraint, a ring's details are considered 'Complete' only when we have, for all of the bells in the ring, all of: a precise (not simply approximate) weight for each bell, a nominal, a diameter, a year of casting (whether exact or approximate), a founder (whether certain or postulated), and information about its canons. If one or more of those pieces of information is missing or the weight is only an approximation, it is considered as 'Incomplete'. Remember though, that even though we may have some data present, it is possibly the case that it is still being investigated (see the second paragraph under Help with Editing Bell Details) and thus a search may not result in all entries which fit that search category actually showing a Supply Details, or an Edit Details link.
ResetThis 'link' will clear all restrictions that have been applied to a preceding search.
Errors and Updates
Please refer to the main help page on our conventions regarding notification of corrections and updates to the details of any particular ring. To contact us, please use the 'Dove Team' link at foot of any page of this site, and it is helpful if you note the tower name within the 'subject' field of your submission. We try to acknowledge the receipt of all such contact, even if only briefly, so if you do not receive a reply after, say, a full week, please be kind enough to re-submit your information.
A Final Note of Caution
We will be happy to receive reports of, and will investigate, any searches which appear not to work as anticipated. However, in undertaking many tests on these facilities, we ourselves have learnt just how easy it is to overlook some still existing constraint when, mentally, we had 'moved on' to another search. Further, we do notice some variable behaviour using different browsers (we invariably check webpage behaviour with both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox). Whichever browser you choose, our advice is to use the latest version of it that is available. When submitting a report of a possible bug, please do include the name and version you are using (it can be ascertained using its Help | About menu function).
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