There has been a church on the site of St Martin’s, Bladon since the 11th century. By 1800 the old medieval church was in a state of decay and permission was granted for the church to be demolished. The 4th Duke of Marlborough paid for building materials for the new church, which was opened in 1804. In this historic venue we facilitated our multimedia ‘Origins of Gospel Music’ service. Our musical story begins in 1748 when John Newton, the author of ‘Amazing Grace’ is shipwrecked. We trace his influence and those who followed him as far as the pioneering music of American Gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s and 1940s.

We should like to thank the Reverend Sarah Bourne, Rector of Woodstock and Bladon for the invitation to play, Gillian, Church Warden at Bladon for looking after us and all who attended the event. Sarah comments: We are so grateful to you for bringing Gospel Bell to St Martin’s yesterday afternoon. Everyone was hugely appreciative of your music and we learnt a great deal about the origins of Gospel Music. We would be delighted to welcome you back on another occasion when the weather is warmer and there are more opportunities to engage with the village. Our sincere thanks to the band.

St John the Baptist, Hornton was originally built in the late 12^th century and now has a largely 14th exterior, resulting from later rebuilding and alterations. Inside, this beautiful church is well known for its medieval wall paintings. This was the settings for a morning service based on our ‘Origins of Gospel music’ multimedia format that among other elements, traces the life of John Newton, author of ‘Amazing Grace’. Thanks to the efforts of Bob Langton, Andrew Overton, Ian and Isabelle Harris, Andrew Barnes and team, more than double the number of people who normally attend services came along to participate in the service and sing along with us. We would like to thank the organising team for their warm welcome and Revd Alicia Baker for inviting us to facilitate the service. We so enjoyed our visit!

As well as Gospel, we love playing Ceilidh events – it’s a privilege to see people dancing! We played at The Big Green Ceilidh fundraiser in Preston on Stour Warwickshire, on Saturday 9th November Warwickshire and at our annual Ceilidh in Bloxham, Oxfordshire on Sunday 10 November. Great fun was had by all!

Our thanks to Revd Neil Roberts, the refreshments and donations team and all who came along to sing with us at this lovely community venue. Neil writes: We had a great evening, we really appreciate you coming out to play for us.  Blessings to you all in this ministry, it’s fab! Hopefully we’ll see you again some point soon.

As Gospel Bell play regularly in churches and help with fund-raising events, we have developed a church service format (complete with readings, a talk and prayers) that traces the roots of Gospel music and the story behind the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’. Our thanks to the United Reformed Church Broadway, for hosting us on Sunday 8 September. It was the first time we’ve used this multi-media format and it went well! If other churches would like to host our Origins of Gospel Music service, please contact me via the Contact Us page.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Cropredy has a long and interesting history. The South Aisle dates from as early as 1050. The Sanctuary in its present form dates from the 14th century. The lower stage of the tower dates from 15th century and the belfry was added about 80 years later. The clock, with its 14ft long wooden pendulum dates from 1831. The tower has 8 bells, six of which were installed in the 17th century and the last two, Fairport and Villager were added as recently as 2007. These bells were named to reflect the good relationship between the church and local Fairport Convention annual festival.

As always, it was a great privilege to open the Cropredy Fringe at St Mary’s at 12 noon. We have noticed over the years, how attendance is boosted either by blisteringly hot weather or, sadly for festival attendees today, by rain! This wonderful lunch time concert is beautifully organised by Church Warden, Verna Wass and we should like to thank Verna, Stephen, their refreshments team and the Revd Canon Sarah Fenby, Vicar of Shires Edge Benefice for the opportunity to play at this special event. The programme truly has something for everyone and is greatly appreciated by all who wander in to join us. Long may it continue!

Our first outing at Music in a Field was in 2023 when the rain and wind were challenging! This year, the sun shone and it was a real privilege to play two sets at this lovely event organised by Adrian Nicholas and Megan Gilkes. We began as the Silver Bough Ceilidh Band and a happy band of dancers joined us on the field in front of the stage. As always, it is a joy to watch a wide age spectrum of people responding so well to Jackie’s fantastic dance calling. After this we morphed into Gospel Bell and in slide guitar maestro Toni’s absence, Adrian played some great harmonica solos. Thank you Adrian for your enthusiasm and fantastic acoustic guitar playing during the Ceilidh and then singing, harmonica and stomp box work during the Gospel Bell set.  We’d also like to thank Joe and his colleague for super sound engineering and support throughout. This is such a special event – our grateful thanks to Megan and Adrian for inviting us to play and for the time, care and attention you put into organising Music in a Field.    

In the last year or so, our Gospel Bell work with churches has expanded as we’ve ventured further afield and last night’s performance at the URC in Wylde Green, Boldmere, near Birmingham was at the invitation of our old friend the Revd Richard Becher who organised a rather special event to showcase the ministry of PeaceyK Nambi, a Ugandan singer and youth work with Youth with a Mission, Uganda. Donald and I were able to travel over a little earlier but Toni had to battle the Friday afternoon traffic from Banbury area, making it just in time. The URC Wylde Green is a lovely old church, with photos of its past ministers in the foyer dating back to the early 1920s. Today, the church hosts inclusive activities for all the community and that was evident from the array of notices in the entrance to the foyer.

We began the first of two sets at 7.15pm and after our first set, PeaceyK sang her own beautiful songs and shared aspects of her work with youth in Uganda. Her love of singing and for her culture and country truly shines through and later, she sang a song that she had composed for the youth of Burundi and Rwanda. She told us that she’d learnt a local Burundian dialect so that the lyrics would encourage the youth she met there. In the second set, we provided the backing for a reggae song sung by a guest singer and then we backed PeaceyK as she sang a song that she’d composed especially for last night.

It was a fantastic evening! Our thanks to the URC Wylde Green for hosting us, Richard for organising the event, PeaceyK for her wonderful songs and voice and the enthusiastic audience that came to support this fund-raising evening.

We have always enjoyed playing fundraisers at St Leonard’s – great singing, dancing and food too. On Saturday 29th June, the event began at 5pm (no conflicts then with Glastonbury main attractions!) and thanks to all the hard work promoting the event, it seemed to us that the largest audience so far came along to sing and dance with us. It is so encouraging to sing and play for such a responsive group of people and any disco would have been glad to see such a packed dance floor – let alone at a Gospel Bell gig! We took a break at around 6pm while the catering team served a fantastic and plentiful range of refreshments. After the break, Revd Kudzayi Harrison Bvekerwa, Vicar of St Leonard’s joined us on percussion and along with our friend Jay Ayliff making a guest appearance on saxophone and dobro, it was for a memorable evening of music!

We would like to thank everyone who came along and supported the evening which raised £634.23 towards essential repairs to the church guttering. This joyful evening would not have been possible without the efforts of the catering team, the advance promotional effort and ticket selling and those who helped on the evening. We are particularly grateful to Sheila James and Olyvia Wilson for the invitation to play and we’ll look forward to the next time. Commenting on the evening, Sheila said that the evening generated ‘a massive amount of mood uplift and community spirit’. Commenting on Sheila’s Facebook post, a lady called Sue said: ‘It was joyous and just what I needed. Thank you all.’

We were delighted to support the launch of this year’s Christian Aid week at St Peter’s and St Paul’s Church, Deddington on Saturday 11 May. To begin, we enjoyed conversation over a fantastic bring and share lunch, followed by some of our music. The main event featured an introduction to this year’s Christian Aid appeal by the Revd. Canon Christopher Hall, supported by a video about the challenges facing the people of Burundi. After this, Richard spoke about his experiences of working with rural communities in Burundi between 2013 and 2016. In particular, he shared details of a remarkable self-directed project by community members that led to dramatic reductions in child malnutrition.

We played again after Richard’s talk and as ever, Donald encouraged us all to sing along. Our grateful thanks to Christopher and Viviane Hall, long-time champions and organisers of Christian Aid week in Deddington, Iain Gillespie for great technical support, Sarah Banes for help with setting-up, Revd Nick Fielden, Vicar, Stan Nelson, Church Warden and everyone that made this such a special occasion (food, conversation, singing and support for the event).