Thursday nights in Kirklington village is when bells are rung. There is a merry band of men and women who gather in the tower of St Michael's church in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands of England to practice the venerable art of bell ringing. Bell ringing is the art of pulling on a rope to ring a large bell which is a church bell in the majority of cases.

The Kirklington bell ringers are welcoming to new members to their happy band, and will train people who would like to learn their ancient craft, and it certainly does go back many years. The first vicar of the Church of St Michael the Archangel was Reverend Richard de Musters, who was instituted at Kirklington church way back in the thirteenth century, in the year 1231.

In the Middle Ages people used to ring church bells to try and stop rain storms, and the associated thunder and lightning. It is likely that this was attempted at St Michael's Church at Kirklington too. As a result of this somewhat misguided, King Canute-like practice of trying to ward off storms by ringing bells, many bell ringers were killed in medieval times when lightning struck church towers and travelled down the wet bell ropes and electrocuted them.

In those days there were no lightning conductors on tall buildings, so the bells, the wet bell ropes and the unfortunate bell ringers acted as lightning conductors. We do not know whether anyone met this fate at St Michael's Church at Kirklington, but we do know that more than a hundred people were killed in this way in France in the eighteenth century. Indeed, in the year 1786 the French Government issued an edict forbidding the practice. Lightning conductors came into use in the nineteenth century for buildings like church towers.

Some people think that bell ringing as practised at Kirklington church is more properly called campanology, but this term refers to the study of bells, so campanology is a much broader discipline than just bell ringing. In addition to how bells are rung (or alternatively played, tolled or pealed) campanology covers things like how bells are cast and tuned, in addition to historical studies about bells and bell ringing.

The need for people to pull on ropes to ring bells has declined with the invention of the carillion, which is an instrument that is a bit like a pipe organ, operated by foot pedals and a keyboard-like system that is bashed with the player's clenched fists. This is connected to all the bells, enabling them to all be played by one just operator. The largest carillions in the world are in the United States of America and South Korea, both of which have seventy seven bells.

Carillions are complex, high-maintenance devices, and it is highly unlikely that we will see one at Kirklington church any time soon. Some churches have gone for the more basic option of playing recorded bell ringing through loud speakers that are mounted in the church towers. This is normally done when the bells have had to be removed, which is not the case with Kirklington church.

Kirklington church had a thorough programme of restoration work carried out in the year 1858, this included work to the bell tower where the bell ringing now takes place on Thursday evenings and special occasions like weddings.