A performance of 1,280 changes upon the bells of St Giles in a new ‘method’, rung for the Bloomsbury Festival, to be named Rookery Surprise Major. The St Giles Rookery was a notorious area of poverty and slums in the 18th and 19th centuries, to the north of the present day church.

To listen to this performance you can be anywhere outdoors in the vicinity of St Giles-in-the-Fields Church. This is the first performance of a newly composed ‘peal ‘of bells, after which the peal is formally named. St Giles-in-the-Fields houses a ‘ringable eight’ in its belfry. A peal is a sequence of bell changes, and new peals are often named after places, or musical qualities. The Suprise Major of the title refers to an intricate sequence of bell ringing.