The 2026 Summer Annual General Meeting of the Guild took place in and around Chorley and Blackburn and we are particularly grateful to Ken Lee for organising this for us at short notice.
We were once again based at the Bolhot Country Park Hotel which had served us well the previous year,
A number us arrived early on the Thursday ready to ring a Quarter Peal of 1260 Plain Bob Triples at St Lukes Church, Heywood, which was successfully completed. The band contained the President, Secretary, Ringing Master and the organiser of the weekend’s ringing.
We were lucky that Friday turned out to be sunnier than forecast and although colder than average we escaped the forecast rain.
Our method of the weekend was Bury Bob Major and although it did provide some challenges, we successfully achieved it on a number of occasions.
The first tower of the day was the 8 of St Mary, Deane. This was accessed by a vertical ladder which, with an additional hole in the floor at the bottom, challenged our understanding of health and safety. In the churchyard was an unusual memorial in the form of a pulpit.
A journey up the M61 took us to the 8 of St Laurence, Chorley where they were having significant structural work undertaken. They had a shop and café as part of their fund raising and we were able to have tea/ coffee and cake. Following this we had a lunch break and there were plenty of dining options in the town.
The afternoon began with the 8 of St Mary, Chorley, which is the Catholic church and these bells proved to be the biggest challenge of our day.
The next was the 8 of St Paul, Adlington, where the tower was added following the First World War, as a memorial to those who lost their lives. On our way to the tower there was the well-known Frederick’s Ice cream parlour for refreshments.
We were next due to ring at Holy Trinity Horwich, but found that we were double booked with a funeral. The vicar therefore took us round to the club behind and gave us drinks but we did give a donation. We were in fact able to ring for a short time after the service so it all worked out well. The final tower of the day was then St Katharine of Blackrod.
Saturday started a sunny but cool day, but by midday had descended to rain. It was a fair drive to our first tower of the day, the 10 of St Peter Burnley. Here we met the son of one of our almost original members, Derek Sibson. Derek did not ring here normally but there was a peal board commemorating a peal that he called for his son Andrew’s 1000th peal. Derek was remembered by one of our very senior members Stuart. Andrew Sibson is a retired GP and believes he himself was once a member of the Guild and this was his home tower.
We were also originally double booked for our next tower, the 8 of St Leonard, Padiham, However, things were juggled, so as the previous band left, we climbed to the tower.
It was then the lunch break and we had quite heavy rain. The first church of the afternoon was St Peter and Paul, Rishton. The final tower was the ground floor ring of the 6cwt 8 of St Jude, Blackburn. They took a little getting used to, but proved a delight.
We finished early on this day so we could return to the hotel for our AGM and dinner. Some members left us at this stage so just 21 of us sat to dinner. The hotel once again looked after us very well really.