Why ring St Clement's? I reckon that very few methods are genuinely not worth ringing, and that most methods have a particular feature or property that can be made use of to make enjoyable compositions.

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Though I am very sceptical of the current obsession with "runs" and the "statistics culture" in ringing composition, I do find that there is a particular way of ringing St Clement's Major that is quite fun, and does lead to many "runs" off the front of the change.

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This is to use long blocks of consecutive singles (technically known as S-blocks, I suppose) which keep the same pair of bells dodging on the front until the next bob or plain lead. Because the same pair of bells are stuck dodging on the front, it means that the same four-bell combinations keep occurring again and again throughout the block. And you often get other "runs" in the same block. For example, some of these S-blocks that have 5678s off the front, also have 6543s off the front (some times in the same lead, sometimes in alternating leads.)

 

These S-blocks can also be used to good effect in touches of St Clement's Minor. I believe that the first peal ever rung of St Clement's Maximus (which was only recently) also used this feature.

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In Summer 2014 I came up with a very complex one-part peal of St Clement's Major which makes use of these S-blocks to yield all sorts of "runs" off the front (and back.) It would be very difficult to learn and call, though. It is also difficult to put it into a suitable notation. The Peal Compositions Committee were so overwhelmed by it that they refused to put it onto the Online Peal Collection! (They didn't tell me as such - I heard secondhand from a friend.)

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If you would like the figures, drop me an email (address at the top of this page) and I'll send it to you. However, I have also come up with one or two quarter peals

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1280 St Clement's College Bob Major

RP

  2345678

s 7586342 4

s 8375264 1

  6427583 3

  5264378 1

s 7483265 4

s 8274536 1

s 2843765 6

s 4728536 1

  5247683 1

  6452378 1

s 5364827 1|

s 6853742 1|

s 5768234 1|

s 6257483 1|A

s 5462378 1|

s 6354827 1|

s 5863742 1|

s 6758234 1|

s 5267483 1

s 4365827 2

  2786543 3

  2483657 A

s 8624735 1

  5728364 2

  3257486 1

s 4653827 2

s 5846732 1

s 4758263 1

s 5247386 1

s 4352678 1

s 6854732 2

  6352478 A

s 4856732 2

s 5748263 1

s 3624857 3

  3527486 A

p 2345678 1

Composed 8th October 2013.

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Just imagine what the peal composition looks like!

Here is a tamer quarter peal

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1312 St Clement's College Bob Major

RBP

M  B  V  W  H

            - 42356

   -     s  s 64523|

s sT  s  s  s 54623|A

s  -        - 34256

      A       53642

s  -        s 32456

      A       53624

s  -        - 43256

      A       54632

s  -        - 24356

            s 23456

A palindrome.

Composed 19th March 2015.