Fully muffled bells, Operation London Bridge, and ringing for the death of a monarch

A couple of months ago I was with ‪@St_Matts_Bells‬ and talked about "half-muffled" bells. Now, for the first time since 1952 we've been asked to ring fully muffled following the announcement of the death of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. What does that mean? Why is it done? What does that have to do with Operation London Bridge?
Video production by Scott Pilkington @spil030 2022
My first video about how and why we muffle bells in the first place: • Bell muffles - for whe...
96 tolls for Queen Elizabeth II: • 96 tolls for the passi...
Noon ringing: • Anthology of muffled r...
Quarter Peal: • Quarter Peal : 1260 Gr...
Ringing for the accession of King Charles III: • Bellringing anthology ...
Playlist: • Bellringing anthology ...

[@c-historia]

thanks for posting this video; the funeral sound at the death of the sovereign is one of the most solemn things I have ever heard played!

[@MargoMarshall]

Thanks Scott, this is super informative and helpful. Much appreciated. ❤

[@ddub0937]

Hi Scott,Dan here a Bell Ringer from the Waikato Cathedral Church Of St Peter. Great video by the way. We rang open ringing on Saturday 10/09/22 at 12.00pm for King Charles the III on all eight bells.Then we rang fully muffled bells on the Sunday morning for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II. This is something I’ll treasure forever as I’ll probably never get the chance to do again.

[@spil030]

Thanks Dan! Yeah, this has been such a wonderful experience. We've been recording as much as we can so that we have it for posterity since it will be a long time before we encounter this again.

[@mrunixman1579]

missed opportunity to ring the bells like this, always wanted to try it.

[@dedododo48]

Well done today, Thank you to you and your team.

[@MelanniedelaCruz]

The first was 5 bells

[@edmilner]

Is that good practice to work amongst the bells in an up position?

[@spil030]

I had a comment here somewhere which I now can't find which covered that we have bell locks on our bells when they're in the upright position. That's the topic of a future video if I can get our steeplekeeper, the engineer who invented the system, to sit down for more than 5 minutes!

[@AllieThePrettyGator]

How come the Tenor never gets the Full Muffled during the monarchs passing

[@spil030]

Tradition I guess! It is something that has been passed down through time. I suppose it is to show the contrast between how they usually sound and the muffled sound.

[@AllieThePrettyGator]

@@spil030 here in america we use Bourdon Bells to toll at Funerals

[@spil030]

@@AllieThePrettyGator Yeah, we toll our tenor which has the same effect. Same principle really, just different names!

[@AllieThePrettyGator]

@@spil030 In change ringing the biggest bell is called the "tenor" however if a larger, heavier bell is also present it would be called a "bourdon". only a handful of cathedrals have them