Women to ring quarter peal for new Archbishop

 

Dame Sarah is the first female Archbishop of Canterbury 

Women will ring the bells at Canterbury Cathedral to mark the historic appointment of the Church of England's first female Archbishop of Canterbury.

Dame Sarah Mullally was installed as leader of the Anglican church on Wednesday, in front of some 2,000 guests in the place of worship.

All 105 previous Archbishops of Canterbury had been men, starting with St Augustine in 597 AD. Women were allowed to become priests in the Church of England in 1994.

On Sunday, the all-female bell ringers from Kent will ring what is known as a quarter peal, a sequence of changes that will take nearly an hour.

Rona Joiner, ringing master for Rochester District, said: "You ring a certain number of changes or each bell goes 'dong' a certain number of times, in effect.

"That's going to be 1,344 changes, which is maybe about 50 minutes without stopping.

"The complication lies in the fact that you have to concentrate that whole time and not get it wrong."