Over winter break, a group of Kent bell ringers took off from NYC for a bellringing adventure in England. The students were all bell ringers who were already familiar with the bells in the small but beautiful St. Joseph’s Chapel on campus.

There are 47 bell towers in North America, but only a few of them are at boarding schools. Fortunately, Kent is one of them and is currently the only school in the continent that has a ringing program. The bells were installed back when the chapel is built in 1931 as a gift from a student’s parents. Bell ringers at Kent have for years learned to safely ring our ten bells, which range from three hundred pounds up to three thousand. The method, change ringing, has been in use for about four hundred years.

During their trip to England, the students visited ten churches in four days, and had a chance to ring the bells in seven of them. The churches were all the way from little parish church up to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where princess Diana and prince Charles got married.

Besides ringing, the students visited Radley College, attended classes, had meals and went to sports practices with college students and faculty. They also toured Oxford University and saw the dining hall in Harry Potter and entrance step to the Hogwarts.

A highlight of their trip was their visit to the Stonehenge, which Mr. Austin described as “pretty awesome.” Over the course of four days, the students and teachers walked over 50 miles in total, seeing some of the greatest sights in England. “It was a jam-packed long weekend abroad,” said Ms. Varga, “but we managed to accomplish so much in a short time.”