Writing about Dartmoor Changes

Book Reviews, Dartmoor Magazine No 82 Spring 2006

DARTMOOR CHANGES (3 x Cds and booklet)

by Andy Stevens and others

PUBLISHER: Aune Head Arts, Princetown, 2005

PRICE: £15; booklet softback, stapled, 178 x 120 mm; 24 pp, col illus

The brainchild of Andy Stevens, grandson of the illustrator for William Crossing’s Guide to Dartmoor, this is easily the most significant and important product so far of Aune head Arts. It is a celebration of Dartmoor bells and bellringing, an activity so ancient and so familiar that we take it for granted. Some 60 hours on three CD’s, comprising the sounds of the bells themselves (both inside and outside towers), and interviews with bellringers etc. The booklet gives useful background and lists the recordings and the ringers.

A whole world is revealed here of a diverse sonorous, beautiful and ancient practice, methodical and mathematical, evocative and located. Thirty-two Dartmoor churches are included.

Aune Head Arts are to be heartily congratulated for this remarkable project, which reaches to something vital in the long history of Dartmoor communities and their churches.

By Tom Greeves

RINGING ROUND DEVON : DECEMBER 2005

CD Review: Dartmoor Changes

Aune Head Arts

Most bell ringing recordings aim to reproduce the sound of the bells form a musical point of view. Fine bells are chosen, the best ringers gathered and only the best ringing makes it onto the soundtrack. The end result is a top quality performance, such as the famous Redcliffe LP.

Aune Head Arts have taken a different approach. By choosing a geographical area, the Dartmoor National Park, in which to record comprehensively, Andy Stevens has included a mixture of bells, good and bad, in this triple CD set, and a mixture of ringing. To this he has added some clock chimes, some interviews, and even a ringing song, to produce something so far unique: an accurate portrait of the art of bell ringing on Dartmoor. Rather than a musical artefact, this is an historical one, especially a sit includes some bells that might not otherwise be heard, such as the chiming of the soon-to-be-restored unringable and unmusical five at Sampford Spiney.

Most of the ringing is by the local team of ringers, although where there was no team, others have been brought in. This means that the ringing is mostly call-changes, and there is some of the expected high standard: the complete peal of Sixty on thirds at South Brent is quite memorable. Inevitably, not all the ringing is of such high standard, and the CD set disposes of the myth that all Devon call-changes strike perfectly! The two tracks with method ringing come as a pleasant change, although it is unfortunate that as the towers are included in alphabetical order, they are found together in the first CD.

Some of the recording is very imaginative. Extraneous noise has not been excluded, and the ringing at Buckfast Abbey, with the bourdon bell being raised, is very atmospheric. The track from Ilsington captures perfectly the different sound of the bells as one approaches a tower, with neighbouring buildings affecting the acoustics; finally the microphone enters the church, the sound of the bells change again, and is replaced by the organ playing before a service. Other tracks are recorded outside the church, and inside the caller’s voice clearly audible…

Lester Yeo