Bell and rope maintenance requires completely different skills to those needed to ring a bell. It has an appeal all of its own. 

Roping up a bell is a handy skill where two people are needed. It simply involves removing an old rope from the wheel and allowing it to drop through the hole into the ringing chamber,  replacing it with a new rope and tying it to the wheel correctly. If you’ve never done this before, ask to watch someone else do it, then have a go whilst they supervise and help. The tricky part comes in getting the height of the sally just right. After dropping your new rope through the holes into the ringing chamber, before you tie it to the wheel, you’ll need someone down below to keep an eye on the sally as you gradually pull it up waiting for distant cries of ‘Stop’ or ‘Down a bit more! then ‘No! not that much!’ when it gets to the appropriate height.

But here’s another tip to save you several trips up and down the stairs. Before you take the old rope off, use a marker pen to draw a line across the place where it goes through the garter hole, put it next to the new rope so that the sallies are together and measure the new rope, marking it in the same place.  Despite all this, new ropes can be stretchy or hang a bit differently, they might even seem shorter in damp weather, so be prepared to re-adjust the new rope a few days later after half your team have complained that it’s too low, too high, a ‘bit bouncy’ or somehow not as good as the old one. Obviously, tick off this challenge and inform them that they can do the job next time.

If you want to learn more about the care of bell ropes, you could always learn to splice ropes or whip the ends of them, completing two more challenges.

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