Sometimes described as "poor man's Bristol Royal", Littleport extends Bristol Major to Royal by turning the treble around in 8th place, maintaining the pattern of points and fishtails at the back, and filling in with triples dodge above the treble across the half lead. The same idea works for maximus and indeed any stage - the treble always goes to 8th place.

2nd - 6th place bells are exactly the same as in Bristol Major. 7th and 8th place bells are almost the same as Bristol, except that the Stedman whole turns at the back unfold to point 10ths and the London backwork unfolds to a fishtail in 9-10. 9th and 10th place bells have a simple pattern: hunt to a point, reverse hunt to a fishtail, hunt to a triple dodge, hunt to a fishtail, reverse hunt to a point, hunt to the lead end.

Three bobbed leads of Littleport is an easy touch because 2-6 ring exactly three leads of Bristol Major and 7-10 are as described above. But beyond that, it's an easy way into ringing a wrong-place pointy method on 10.

We've had occasional attempts to ring it on handbells, and indeed I mentioned it way back in 2013. But there has always been a bit of resistance to trying it without prior study, and we've never got around to making it into a real project. However, last month we tried it at an (online) SACR tower bell practice, and it went quite well. So yesterday we agreed to try it on handbells with the Albany Quadrant band, again in Ringing Room.

We were suffering a bit from sticky internet, but we managed to ring most of a plain course. I think it's worth trying again on Monday. I'm sure we would easily ring it in person.