page_title: Church bell
section_title: Design and ringing technique
hierarchical_section_title: Church bell / Design and ringing technique
caption_attribution_description: English: Labelled image of a bell hung for English full-circle ringing. Cast in 1857 at the Whitechapel bell foundry and installed in an oak frame at St Bees Priory, it is 13 hundredweights (imperial) or 660 kg (SI) in weight, and is the largest bell of the ring of 8 bells installed in 1858.
context_page_description: A church bell in the Christian tradition is a bell which is rung in a church for a variety of ceremonial purposes, and can be heard outside the building. Traditionally they are used to call worshippers to the church for a communal service, and to announce the fixed times of daily Christian prayer, called the canonical hours, which number seven and are contained in breviaries. They are also rung on special occasions such as a wedding, or a funeral service. In some religious traditions they are used within the liturgy of the church service to signify to people that a particular part of the service has been reached. The ringing of church bells, in the Christian tradition, is also believed to drive out demons.
  The traditional European church bell used in Christian churches worldwide consists of a cup-shaped metal resonator with a pivoted clapper hanging inside which strikes the sides when the bell is swung. It is hung within a steeple or belltower of a church or religious building, so the sound can reach a wide area. Such bells are either fixed in position or hung from a pivoted beam so they can swing to and fro.
context_section_description: Christian church bells have the form of a cup-shaped cast metal resonator with a flared thickened rim, and a pivoted clapper hanging from its centre inside. It is usually mounted high in a bell tower on top of the church, so it can be heard by the surrounding community. The bell is suspended from a headstock which can swing on bearings. A rope is tied to a wheel or lever on the headstock, and hangs down to the bell ringer. To ring the bell, the ringer pulls on the rope, swinging the bell. The motion causes the clapper to strike the inside of the bell rim as it swings, thereby sounding the bell. Some bells have full-circle wheels, which is used to swing the bell through a larger arc, such as in the United Kingdom where full- circle ringing is practised.
  Bells which are not swung are "chimed", which means they are struck by an external hammer, or by a rope attached to the internal clapper, which is the tradition in Russia.
caption: Mechanism of a bell hung for English full-circle ringing. The bell can swing through just over a full circle in alternate directions.
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