Essex bellringers have been pulling together to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Churches Conservation Trust.

Nationwide, the charity cares for 340 historic churches no longer required for regular worship, and encourages their use as an educational and community resource.

Among them are St Leonard-at-the-Hythe, Colchester, and Holy Trinity, Halstead, which took part in a mass birthday bellringing session involving 70 churches.

Bringing the churches’ music bang up to date is a new mobile phone ring tone featuring the bells of St John the Baptist Church in Avon Dassett, Warwickshire.

They were recorded as they pealed for the first time in 30 years, following the CCT’s £700,000 restoration of the 140-year-old bell tower.

Rebecca Rees, the trust’s south-east and East Anglia regional manager, said: “The Birthday Bells event proved a great success with a huge number of local people visiting our historic churches to discover how these incredible buildings can be used by the community again.

“We are working to bring churches back into the heart of the community, to protect their historical significance and open them up to local communities for wider use – from nursery groups to circus schools.

“There will be many more birthday events taking place this year – all are listed on our website together with our fortieth birthday mobile ring tone which you can download for free.”

• Local people can find out more about using local historic churches, by contacting the regional CCT office on 01732 843858 or emailing southeast&eastanglia@tcct.org.uk

To download the ring tone, log on to visitchurches.org.uk