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Unlike civil clock bells, the strikes of a ship's bell do not accord to the number of the hour. Instead, there are eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch. In the age of sailing, watches were timed with a 30-minute hourglass.
For example, while six bells have 720 permutations, eight bells have 40,320; furthermore, 10! = 3,628,800, and 12! = 479,001,600. Estimating two seconds for each change (a reasonable pace), one finds that while an extent on six bells can be accomplished in half an hour, an extent on eight bells should take nearly twenty-two and a half hours.
For seven bells the extent is 7! = 5,040 changes and is thus synonymous with a peal. For lower numbers of bells several extents are rung to make up the number of changes in a peal. For larger numbers of bells a peal is a subset of the extent. The extent on eight bells comprises 40,320 changes, and would be referred to today as a long-length peal.
With five bells 5! = 120 which takes about 5 minutes. With seven bells 7! = 5,040 which takes about three hours to ring. This is the definition of a full peal on 7 (5,000 or more for other numbers of bells.) Less demanding is the quarter peal of 1,260 changes.
The Kremlin Clock on the Moscow Kremlin rings in 2012.. The most basic sort of striking clock simply sounds a bell once every hour; this is called a passing strike clock. . Passing strike was simple to implement mechanically; all that must be done is to attach a cam to a shaft that rotates once per hour; the cam raises and then lets a hammer fall that strikes t
Prior to this, full-time bell ringers were employed. In medieval times, an appointed churchwarden would oversee two bell ringers, a clergyman for the spire bells (the petit sonneur) and a layman for the main bells (the grand sonneur). To swing the bells, many assistants were recruited, as many as 40 at a time on feast days.
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Example of full-circle bells in England in the "up" position. In the United Kingdom predominantly in the Anglican church, there is a strong tradition of change ringing on full-circle tower bells for about half an hour before a service. This originated from the early 17th century when bell ringers found that swinging a bell through a large arc ...