Welcome!

Our Region

The North West Region is part of Handbell Ringers of Great Britain, whose aim is to promote tune ringing on handbells by organising activities and providing support and advice for its members.

The Region covers Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, parts of Derbyshire and West Yorkshire, North Wales, the Isle of Man and Ireland.  

Our activities are organised for members of the Region, but there’s a warm welcome for prospective members so if you would like to try out one of our events, contact our Secretary, Irene Merson.
                                                                     The Region also has a Facebook Group 
                                                                                                                https://www.facebook.com/groups/1223433977844693/

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60th Anniversary of the First National Rally

Celebration at Marple

Autumn Rally 10^th October 2026 All Saints Church Hall, Marple

Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the First National Rally at Norbury, Stockport.

There was an impressive collection of photos and documents from the Norbury Archives.
These prompted many happy memories of the history of the region and the team.

Norbury played “Waltz La Sarabande” a piece which was played at the first rally by the Norbury Team. They finished off the team ringing with “Home Sweet Home” arranged by William Gordon of Stockport.

Llandudno Handbell Ringers played “The Barren Rocks of Eden” Pipe Tune and “Sheep May Safely Graze”.

Marple URC Handbell Team played Angela Jones’ arrangement of “All Through the Night” and “A Little Dance” while Maghull Parish Handbell Ringers played a piece they had discovered at the International Symposium in Aberdeen in August, Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and the piece they had played at the International Symposium Evening Concert, “Meditation on Blaenwern” arranged by Malcolm Wilson. It had been arranged for the Wedding Anniversary of two of Maghull’s Founders, Simon and Molly Rennie who unfortunately could not be with us.

Kinder Ringers played “Moon River” and “Cheek to Cheek” with Karen managing to play two parts.
Meanwhile Josie was busy taking photos for the next edition of Oyez.

At Lunch there was plenty of time to view the cake and the archives and try the Raffle and the 1966 themed Quiz.
The Celebration cake was cut by Alan Hartley who had not been at the first rally, as he had just gone to University, but had been involved in the organising and Kate Worthington, the current Chair of the Northwest HRGB region. Jeff Robinson an early member of the HRGB was also present.
Kate said how proud she was that the first National Rally took place in the NorthWest.

The massed ringing was based on the programme from the first rally.
First was The Trumpet Voluntary by John Stanley. John Stanley had been blind from the age of 2 and was Organist at Covent Garden, London in the 18^th Century when he wrote this piece for the organ.
 It had been played by Ealing Handbell Ringers at the first rally. Not to be confused with The Trumpet Voluntary by Jerimiah Clarke which is often played at weddings. Beth Mc Cord kindly conducted.
We played an arrangement by Sandra Winter. The beginning of the rally coincided with the HRGB Executive Committee ZOOM meeting so Kate Worthington had to be our representative there.

The Minuet and Trio by Mozart from the 39^th symphony was also played by Norbury at the First Rally.

The committee choice was “Minuets from The Royal Fireworks” by Handel arranged by Jason Walker which had been arranged for this year’s national rally at Moreton-In-Marsh. Isaac Wan kindly conducted both “minuets” pieces. The final massed ring of the Fireworks music had a very rousing finale fitting for such an awesome celebration.

Some comments after the rally from ringers who attended  “Please would you pass on the thanks of Kinder Ringers for a really successful rally yesterday.  We all thoroughly enjoyed it.  The choice and ringing of the massed pieces was excellent and it was good to have plenty of time to socialise and look at your fascinating collection of archive material. It was a fitting commemoration of such a momentous original event.  And all the cakes were fantastic!”

Thank you for your hard work today. Please pass our thanks on to the rest of your team.
Thanks Beth McCord and Isaac for the great conducting

Agreed, thank you very much Norbury team & conductors!

Hear hear! It was a lovely day! Great job Norbury!

Norbury Handbell Ringers and HRGB NorthWest Committee are grateful to all who came celebrate with us.
We are also very grateful to All Saints Church, Marple for the use of their hall and to the
conductors and arrangers of massed ringing music used at this event.

International Symposium Aberdeen 2026

International Handbell Symposium 2026

A respectably large group of NorthWest Handbell Ringers made the long journey to Aberdeen Scotland for the 22^nd International Handbell Symposium from 3^rd to 8^th August 2026.

The cooler weather up North was a relief from the current heatwave at home and we were soon settling into our hotel and unloading handbells.

We had the music sent to us in advance and had had a look at the massed ringing music thanks to practices organised by the Northern Bell Orchestra. The Symposium venue, P&J Live (Post and Journal) or The Exhibition and Conference Centre Aberdeen (TECA) was impressive in its size and facilities. The “green shirts” or organising committee were there to welcome us and answer our many and varied questions. Small gifts and badges were exchanged at the welcome reception.

Our allotted space in Hall C was next to a group of Canadian Ringers “The Eh Team”,
as Canadians are known for saying “Eh” as a greeting and fortunately they were very friendly. We even became their official team photographer as a group photo was required every day as they wore their different team shirts. In return they supplied us with Canadian sweets in the breaks. In front of us were a team from New York USA who were very enthusiastic, joining in all the actions for the performance whereas we were too busy concentrating on getting the right notes in the right places.

The conductors came from all the eight guilds involved in the organising committee and were different in their approaches and styles. The podium had to be raised by a foot to allow people at the back of the hall to see the conductor. It was very difficult to control such a huge number of ringers and in some cases three limbs were required to bring in all the different parts.

The massed ringing practices were very varied as all the pieces were so different.
It was quite a relief though when the Workshops began on the Wednesday and we could do something other than ring handbells!

On Thursday the day started with a moving all faith service to remember those killed at Hiroshima for Hiroshima Day.
Each day started with Notices and Lost and Found announcements. At one point a toy Echidna had been found and it was still there on Saturday so I hope it found it’s way home.

Two surprise pieces were added to the concert programme, donated by Bells of Whitechapel, and conducted by Aidan Fozard. We had a couple of run-throughs but it was mainly rung by sight-reading. However being well-known tunes it didn’t seem to matter.

The final piece for the concert was a fun piece requiring special effects to represent raising the flags and rigging on a ship and hauling on the ropes. This also included actions, stomping, calling “Ahoy” and singing which all added to the performance.

The evening concerts each day showcased some fantastic teams from countries as varied as Hungary and Hong Kong including our own Northern Bell Orchestra and Maghull Parish Handbell Ringers. Also a three generational team featuring Linda, Beth and Jocie. There was also a scratch World handbell choir formed of ringers who had met at previous Symposia and had had just 90 minutes practice but was so good it had to have an encore.

The ringing “tracks” workshops, who had also only had two days to practice their  pieces, gave amazing performances.

After the build up to the final live-streamed Concert attended by the Lord Provost of Aberdeen City, the Banquet and Closing Ceremony was a chance to wind down and meet more new friends. Many people involved in organising the Symposium were thanked including the Japanese Interpreter, Arthur Syin who seemed to be ad-libbing a bit as the conductors frequently commented  “Did I say that?”.

The next Symposium President Foon Lyn Yap was introduced for Singapore in 2028 and the IHC Symposium flag handed over in a moving ceremony.

See the Gallery Gallery - 2026 International Symposium

Kinder Ringers at Chinley and Buxworth WI

Kinder Handbell Ringers June 2026

Chinley and Buxworth WI kindly invited Kinder Ringers to perform at their June Meeting .

The meeting was brought to attention by the ringing of a bell, appropriately, and the leader introduced the ringers.

The programme consisted of music from shows and musicals interspersed with special handbell arrangements. 

Oh what a beautiful morning
Alexander’s Ragtime Band
Lara’s theme
Oh When the Saints
American Patrol
Jubellee Polka
If I were a Rich man
Moon River
Last of the Summer Wine
Lullaby of Broadway
We’ll keep a Welcome in the Hillside
Simple Gifts (Lord of the Dance)

Some of the tunes were well known and the ladies of the WI enjoyed singing along.
So much so that their leader suggested a WI choir should be formed!

Handbell Concert in Stockport on Saturday 20th June 2026 at 7.30pm(2)

Saturday 20th June 2026

Chapel Male Voice Choir will be holding a concert of Singers and Ringers with Kinder Handbell Ringers as their special guests.

Having just returned from a triumphant visit to Greece with a silver medal in the World Choir Festival this is an event not to be missed.

The concert will start at  7.30pm at St George's Church, 28 Buxton Road, Davenport, Stockport  SK2 6NU.