BELLS IN THE DIOCESE OF CHESTER

 

A CONTRIBUTION TO A NATIONAL BELL REGISTER?

 

For a few years, the Central Council has been considering whether to instigate a project to set up a National Bell Register. This would serve a number of purposes, not least how many bells there are in the country and available for ringing, whether there are any bells by particularly ‘rare’ founders (although this is partially covered by the ‘Listed Bells’ register held by the Council for the Care of Churches). Various methods of holding and accessing this data have been considered and a sample of a database was set up by John Baldwin from Llandaff, using data from the Winchester and Portsmouth Guild. John made a presentation to the Council at the meeting in Llandudno in 2003, but the Council decided not to pursue the idea any further because of the cost versus the perceived benefits. I believe however that the concept will be carried forward privately by a group of individuals.

 

At the Council meeting, Peter Wilkinson volunteered the help of the Chester Guild in providing data to the proposed Register and this was largely based on my researches around the Diocese. I have been inspecting and recording details of our bells for over 30 years and I hold the results in a standard Access database. I thought it would be of interest to Guild members to know what data is currently available. I am trying to look at all bells in the Diocese of Chester, not simply ringable bells and including secular bells.

 

So far I have identified 1082 conventional bells (of which 790 are hung for ringing), 14 hemispherical bells and 25 tubular bells. Our oldest bell with a date cast on it is 1508, although there are undated bells which are older. I have identified 39 different founders, but the largest contributions to our heritage were:

 

Foundry

Number

Percentage of total

Taylor/Loughborough

498

44%

Rudhall

167

15%

Whitechapel & predecessors

150

13%

Warner

50

4%

Gillett & Johnston

37

3%

Other miscellaneous

137

13%

Unknown at the present time

82

8%

 


An analysis by half-century of when our current bells were cast shows a peak of activity between 1850 and 1950;

 

 

 

The data has been compiled from many different sources, including: my own inspections as DAC Bells Consultant, the work by a former Master of the Guild (J W Clarke) published by the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society (survey never completed), some surveys carried out by the Branches in the 1970’s and the excellent website of the Wirral Branch. At the moment I am concentrating my efforts to gather further data by looking at the smaller church buildings within the Diocese. I would be grateful for an invitation to see your bells, if I have not been already, to further our knowledge.

 

Peter Dyson

D A C – Bells Consultant

Tele : 01625 876394