The name of Lord Peter Wimsey should need little in the way of introduction. He was one of the most well-known private detectives of the 20th Century, featuring in a number of well documented cases. But as well as being a detective, Lord Peter was also a knowledgeable collector of Incunabula, a first-class cricketer - and a bellringer. Most people will know of his bellringing ability from his participation in the long peal at Fenchurch St Paul, but will know little else. How did he become a bellringer? Recent discoveries in the archives at Duke’s Denver, his ancestral home, and elsewhere, have shed new light on his ringing career, which is summarised below.

Lord Peter was born in 1890, the 2nd son of the 15th Duke of Denver. He spent his early years at Duke’s Denver, in Norfolk, which is about 15 miles further on from the ‘original’ Denver, just outside Downham Market. According to a brief interview which appeared in the Paggleham Parish News when the new bells were dedicated (more of this later), he learned to ring at Duke’s Denver aged 13 or 14. Duke’s Denver church was an Estate church and possessed an excellent ring of 8 bells, and a good band, largely comprised of Estate workers. Several ‘situations vacant’ adverts have been found in Bell news, asking for gardeners or coachmen who were also change ringers. Lord Peter describes how he came to learn to ring:“I was a morbidly curious child. I saw the bellringers every Sunday morning when I attended church. The bells are rung from the ground floor, so I used to watch, fascinated, as the ringers first of all rang the bells up, then rang ‘Bob Major’, ‘Grandsire Triples’ or ‘Kent Treble Bob’. It looked quite easy to a child; gradually start the bell swinging, then begin to control the coloured ‘sally’ until the bell turned in a complete circle and back again. I longed to try it - with the arrogance of youth I was sure I would be able to do it without any sort of instruction. So one summer, just before I went to Eton, I went down to the church, and took hold of one of the bellropes, coiling the rope as I had seen the ringers do, and set the bell swinging. At first all went well; the bell gradually swung higher and higher, but when I tried to catch hold of the sally I found it harder than I expected, and the rope started to fly all around the ringing room. I don’t know what might have happened, but the Estate Manager, who was also the Tower Captain, was working nearby and heard the bell ringing. He rushed into the church, saw what was happening, clouted me round the ear, took the rope off me and brought it under control. He was furious with me, explaining that I could have killed myself, but calmed down after a while when I asked if he would teach me how to ring properly, which he did, and taught me very well. Very soon I was able to join the rest of the band at their practice night. They were a little dubious at first at having the Duke's son ring with them, but they eventually treated me as a normal novice ringer when they saw I was eager to learn. The Tower Captain shouted at me just the same as he shouted at the rest of the band when they made mistakes, which helped.”

Lord Peter made rapid progress in method ringing, and the tower record book, now in Duke’s Denver Library, records various performances of ‘P Wimsey’, first on the treble to triples and major, then inside, culminating in a number of peals, mostly at Christmas or Easter, including several of Treble Bob. It appears he rang regularly when he was back at Duke’s Denver, but does not say anything about ringing anywhere else. He was at Eton from 1904 to 1908, and it seems likely that he rang at the Curfew Tower, given his family connections with the Royal 

Family. There were a couple of weddings which his family attended, so knowing Lord Peter, he is likely to have joined the local ringers on these occasions. 

In 1909 Lord Peter went up to Oxford and read History at Balliol College. The Oxford University Society appears to have been in abeyance at this time so it is uncertain if he did any ringing while he was at Oxford. However, he chose to get married at St Cross Church in 1935. Why did he choose this particular, quite unfashionable church? There was a band of ringers there at the time, and it was only half a mile from Balliol, so it is possible that he rang there at some point during his time at Oxford and retained fond memories of the church, but we cannot be certain.

The Great War of 1914-1918 put a stop to Lord Peter’s ringing for quite a while. It took him some time to recover from the effects of shellshock, but by the mid 1930s it seems he was again ringing occasionally when he went home to Duke’s Denver. The next record of Lord Peter’s ringing is when he is persuaded by the Rev Theodore Venables to ring in the 15,840 Kent Treble Bob Major, starting at midnight on New Year’s Day. Lord Peter writes about this peal in the Paggleham Parish News:

“I suppose I have achieved a certain degree of fame (or maybe notoriety) by ringing in the 15,840 Kent Treble Bob Major at Fenchurch St Paul. It happened totally by chance; my car ran off the road near Fenchurch St Paul, and the Vicar offered to put me up until my car could be repaired. He then told me that the bells would be ringing all night! But then he was told that one of the ringers had gone down with influenza, which was endemic at that time, and as several ringers had already succumbed, they would be unable to ring the peal as planned. However I had during our previous conversation divulged some knowledge of change ringing, and the Vicar realised I was a ringer and persuaded me to ring, even though it was years since I had rung even a normal length peal! The story of that night and the events which followed was recorded by Miss Sayers in her well-known book*, but not without a certain amount of poetic licence and exaggeration. The weight of the tenor, for instance, was less than half the weight given by Miss Sayers, and Hezekiah Lavender was nowhere near 75 - I would guess he was about 60, but looked older, as did many Fenlanders at that time. But it was still a fantastic performance.”

This interview in the Paggleham Parish News  with Lord Peter dates from 1947. Paggleham, in North Hertfordshire,  was where Lord Peter had bought an old farmhouse, Talboys, on his marriage to Harriet Vane in 1935. Harriet Wimsey spent the greater part of World War II at Talboys with her children, and Lord Peter joined her for the final few years of the war after his ‘special service’ came to an end. His nephew, Viscount St George, was a fighter pilot and was stationed nearby, and was a frequent visitor until he was killed in action, leaving Lord Peter heir to the Dukedom. After the War, he and Harriet suggested to the Vicar, Revd Simon Goodacre, that the unringable three bells at the church be restored and augmented. He would give one bell in memory of his nephew, and Harriet would give another in memory of her parents; her father was the local doctor for many years. He suggested that another bell should be in memory of those villagers who had died during the war and would be paid for by the village as a whole by subscription. 

This was achieved by the summer of 1947. The three new bells were blessed before being installed in the tower and a Service of Dedication was held, attended by most of the village. Then, of course, ringers had to be found. Lord Peter was the only ringer in the village, and was persuaded to teach a new band, though he did have help from some of the ringers at nearby Great Pagford. One of the first to learn was Lord Peter’s eldest son, Bredon, then aged 11. In the following years Lord Peter’s two younger sons, Roger and Paul, also learned, and all three became competent ringers. Lord Peter rang a few more peals, all at Paggleham. In 1948 the first peal on the bells was achieved, with his eldest son Bredon ringing his first peal. Over the next few years he rang in the first peals of Paul and Roger, and his final peal was rung for the Coronation in 1953.

Lord Peter succeeded to the Dukedom on the death of his elder brother, Gerald, whose only son was killed in WWII. He rang at Duke’s Denver on Sundays, but running the estate took up most of his time, and his son Bredon became Tower Captain, and instigated the rehanging of the bells a few years later. Roger became Tower Captain at Fenchurch St Paul, following his marriage to the daughter of Hilary Thorpe. Hilary had first met Lord Peter following the events at Fenchurch St Paul after the long peal, and had kept in touch with him. At the age of 15 Hilary had told Lord Peter of her ambition to become a novelist and she had done so, and when her only child married Roger she handed over The Red House to the Thorpe-Wimseys and went travelling around the world. Paul eventually inherited Talboys and carried on ringing at Paggleham.

 As Lord Peter grew older, he felt he could no longer ring up to the standard he wanted, so only rang infrequently, for special occasions. He gradually handed over more responsibility for running the estate to Bredon, Viscount St George, who succeeded to the Dukedom on the death of his father. Bredon continued ringing at Duke’s Denver for many years, and eventually taught his own children to ring, thus continuing the family tradition. He added two additional bells to the ring, making them up to 10, which were dedicated to the memory of his parents: a fitting memorial.

*The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers, Gollancz, 1934