To mark the beginning of the new millennium, the Friends of All Saints Church launched a project which saw the restoration of the bells to bring them back into full working order as well as to augment the tower to six with the casting of the Millennium bell.
Now that the bells were back in full working order all that was needed now were ringers to ring them. So a letter was sent out by the Friends asking for volunteers to come forward to be trained in how to ring with the intention of creating a new band. The aim was for this new band was for it to participate in a national ringing event, where ringers across the country would ring church bells to welcome in the second millennia.
Seven people came forward to learn and were duly trained at a number of local towers by ringers from Beetley, Whissonsette and Gressenhall led by Tower Captain Johnathon White and Sarah Seaman. By late 1999 and after a period of over 50 years, the All Saints Swanton Morley Bell Ringers were formed and on 1 January 2000, at 12noon the bells of All Saints pealed out across the village, rung by a local band
The band continued to attract more ringers and the standard of ringing improved and the band began to ring quarter peals with bands made up with the local ringers. In the mid-2000s, the tower merged practices with Dereham for a short period of time to help support Dereham in the training of new ringers as both practices were on a Friday. When Dereham moved their practices to a Monday this mutual support continued allowing both towers to grow through mutual support. Practice nights continued to be busy at Swanton Morley with people at all stages of their ringing journey.
After 9 years, in early 2008 Johnathon stood down as tower captain as he was no longer able to attend the practice due to him relocating. This meant that a new tower captain would be needed. After some discussion Ted said that he thought Aaron should have a go at doing it. Having only been ringing for a couple of years and being 21 at the time Aaron wasn't too sure but agreed to do it for 6 months as long as Sarah was able to support him in running the practices. Six months soon passed and so did the next. Now some 15 years later Aaron is still Tower Captain, a role he is immensely proud to fulfil.
Towards the end of the teams first decade together a number of changes took place. First of all the ringers designed a new tower logo which was then had embroidered onto sky blue polo tops and hoodies. It started a bit of a trend in the benefice with Dereham and Scarning bands creating their own tops. They were always commented on by other towers.
The band also decided to enter the Griston Five bell plate striking competition and the NDA striking competitions, coming second with our method band ringing All Saints!
The original members of the band ringing in 2000
