When one of our ringers, Jenny Watson went to Australia, we became twinned with her new tower at Bathurst Cathedral in New South Wales. John Cleverley, our Tower Captain, made a wooden spider for the ringers of Bathurst Cathedral's new bell tower and this is now in regular use. The spider is a wooden piece of equipment that is used to pull the bell ropes up and out of the way and is thus important to most bell towers. The spider was presented to the Bathurst bell tower fund raising committee in 2006 after a visit from the Andrew Sempell, then Dean of Bathurst Cathedral. It was presented to support the new bell tower and as this has now has been built, so the spider has finally been installed to complete the project.

The spider itself has a local connection as it was made of ash and beech and John Cleverley reported that the upright legs came from the old organ of St Mary the Virgin church in Micheldever when a new organ was installed.

Bathurst Cathedral had one of the first sets of bells in inland Australia but was considered unstable in the 1890s so bells were only chimed and then demolished in 1970. The building of the new tower for Bathurst Cathedral is therefore a major achievement for the local community and the Sparsholt bell ringers are proud to have supported them in their endeavour. Above left you can see a photo of the Dean of Bathurst, Andrew Sempell and his daughter, with John Cleverley. Above right is a photo of Sparsholt ringers with our guest Maurice McNeil also from Bathurst. L to r: Amanda Bayford, Coral Northeast, Janet Beesley, Caroline Hayes, Lucy White, Maurice McNeil, John Cleverley, Peter May.

John Cleverley, our Tower Captain, rang a quarter peal of Bob Doubles Surprise to celebrate his and Liz's 40th Wedding anniversary on Sunday March 3rd 2002.
L to r: Carol Waller, Ben Waller, Elizabeth Johnson, Jonathan Waller, John Cleverley, Wendy Ling

Peter Noel rang a quarter peal of Bob Doubles on 14th August 2004 to celebrate his and Pam's 40th Wedding Anniversary. L to r: Amanda Bayford, John Cleverley, Peter Noel, Pam Noel, Edmond Wratten, Coral NorthEast and Janet Beesley

On Saturday 12th April 2008 we went on a Band outing, and rang at Upham, Bishop's Waltham, Warnford and Cheriton. This photo was taken in the Cheriton ringing chamber