I have written several times before about my plan to visit Dun a Bhuilg, the house in Argyll where the second and third SACR handbell peals were rung. It was built for Edwin and Agatha Lewis and is now owned by their grandson Simon, who runs it as a holiday rental. The ringing connection is that Edwin Lewis was President of the Central Council from 1930 to 1957 and Master of the College Youths in 1936 and 1937. The week before last, we finally went! There will be a short article in the Ringing World, and there's a BellBoard event recording the ringing. This blog article will be more of a catalogue, including various peals that we didn't score.

First, the house. It's lovely. The location is really remote, more than an hour beyond Inveraray by car. There's a small beach within walking distance, and a few members of our group went swimming. Yes, in the sea, in Scotland, in April! In the living room we found a portrait of Edwin Lewis. We took a photo of Tina next to it, which I think she has used in her president's blog. The first quarter of the week was Stedman Triples on Saturday evening.

On Sunday morning we visited Kilmory Knap chapel, which is a few minutes' walk away in a small cluster of houses. Edwin and Agatha Lewis are buried there, along with one of their sons and his wife. Edwin's gravestone includes a bell as part of the design. We rang three leads of Kent Maximus, twice in order to include everyone, followed by rounds on twelve with Dorothy Gay and Paisley Cater. After that we went inside the chapel. It's a little gem, built in the early 13th century, and one of the tourist attractions of the area although I had not found out about it in advance. From the outside it looks like a semi-ruin, but once inside we saw that the roof had been replaced by an inverted V of glass. The chapel is full of carved stones dating from the early years of Christianity to the 16th century. We rang a course of Stedman Cinques and took a group photo (picture by Jonathan Frye).

One of the ringing goals of the week was the long-awaited peal of Cambridge Maximus. We rang a quarter for practice on Sunday evening, but the peal is still long-awaited. After a failed peal attempt on Monday, we diverted our maximus ambitions into practising Bristol.

We had visitors on Monday afternoon: Martin Mellor, who is the SACR publicity officer, and his partner Ewan Halley. They live in an even more remote spot on the Isle of Danna. Their house is about a kilometre from Dun a Bhuilg as the crow flies, but an hour by car along small roads. Martin was keen to ring his first handbell quarter later in the week and requested Kent Major. We rang some Kent Major for practice, then made him ring the tenors to three leads of royal, then maximus, then fourteen before running out of bells.

Another ringing goal was a peal of Silver Surprise Major, because the Wednesday was my and Tina's 25th wedding anniversary. We rang a quarter on Tuesday for practice, but didn't succeed with the peal. Ringing quarters instead of peals in each method became the theme of the week, and in retrospect it might have been better to concentrate on quarters from the beginning. Also that day there was an unsuccessful ladies peal attempt (Yorkshire by Tina, Angela, Julia, Jess) and an unsuccessful boys peal attempt (CYN Royal by myself, Jonathan, Peter, Nick and Matt). Later though a mixed band rang a quarter of Cambridge Royal.

Although we didn't get the peal of Silver, we marked the anniversary with a quarter of Stedman Cinques. Somewhere during the week, I forget exactly which day, we also attempted a peal of Stedman Triples. This built on the intensive online practice that Tina, Julia, Marcus and I had done a year or so ago. This time we had Matt instead of Marcus, and Julia was conducting. It was going very well for about an hour, then one of those mysterious Stedman fire-ups occurred.

The top ringing priority for the week was to ring a peal, and by Thursday we were getting worried that we wouldn't manage it. We therefore sat down to try a peal of Kent Maximus, which went smoothly. Phew! On Friday morning we went on a boat trip around the Gulf of Corryvreckan. This is the location of the world's third largest whirlpool when the conditions of tide and weather are just right. We didn't see the full scale whirlpool, but we did see some impressive standing waves and were swept through the tidal race of the Grey Dogs. The boat trip was also a wildlife tour and we were pleased to see a white-tailed sea eagle (picture by Jonathan Frye).

After the boat trip we went for lunch at Martin and Ewan's house and rang Martin's quarter of Kent Major. Finally, in the evening, we completed the Bristol Maximus project by ringing a quarter. It was a good achievement for the whole band.

So, overall, one peal and seven quarters, as well as a lot of practice and miscellaneous ringing. There was also walking, kayaking, swimming and plenty of relaxing. Everyone had a good time and we will probably try to do another trip in the future.