A BRIDPORT church will be participating in a worldwide celebration to mark the 200th anniversary of a unique bell-ringing invention.

St Mary's Church on South Street will be using its Ellacombe Apparatus this weekend to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the device.

Bells will ring throughout the world this Saturday, June 26 to celebrate the invention of the Ellacombe Apparatus, also known as the Ellacombe Chimes, 200 years ago.

St Mary's is not yet able to ring the bells in full, with all the bell ringers in the tower due to social distancing, but will be contributing to the bell ringing with the use of its own Ellacombe Appartus, renamed 'the Samathon' in honour of bell ringer Sam Dunn, who has maintained the device for many years.

The chiming system was designed 200 years ago by the Rev Henry Thomas Ellacombe, from St Mary’s Church at Bitton, near Bristol.

The apparatus, now used in bell towers across the world, enables one trusted person to ring the bells instead of six or eight bell ringers. Ellacombe originally made the invention to dispense with ‘wayward’ bell ringers.

The ‘Chime around the World’ celebration, which crosses 11 time zones, will start in New Zealand and finish in Canada 17 hours later. At least 100 churches and towers will be participating.