Local community raises £150,000 to recast church bells

The Church of St Peter and St Paul in North Curry dates from the early 1400s and the sounds of its bells have rung out over hundreds of years. The local community, both church members and non-members, raised £150,000 for the bells to be recast. Fundraiser Martin Horrox said, “You only get a chance to renew the bells like this every 200 or 300 years, so it really caught the imagination of the village.”

Simon Bale, the church’s vicar, said, “We’ve had events galore both in the church and in the village, and It’s brought people together in a wonderful way. These bells represent the sounding out of God in the whole of the community.”

Some of the locals, including local historian Angela Dix, plan to travel to the foundry to see the bells being recast. Angela said, “It’s going to be such an emotional occasion. I’m emotional now waving them off because they’ve been in situ for such a long time. We’re very proud of our bells.”

One parishioner commented, “We’ve missed the bells because we haven’t been able to ring them for about two and a half years. It’ll be lovely to have a new set to ring.”

The current set of eight bells, the oldest of which was made in 1811, has been removed from the church tower and sent to a foundry in Leicestershire to be melted down and recast.

The total weight of the bells is currently around 4 tons. Steve Jackson, a village resident with a background in project management, oversaw the technical side of the project. Steve explained the reasons for the recasting of the bells. “The difference will be that the bells as a whole will be about a ton lighter than they are at the moment, though they will stay the same pitch. For the first time they will also all be tuned to the same scale. They’ve never been tuned as a set before so they will sound better. They will also be lighter, which makes them easier to ring. And they’ll be lighter in the tower, which is an important criteria for the church. The load of a church bell when it’s swinging is not a static load, it’s dynamic. It swings and stops quite abruptly to allow it to ring. That movement across the tower sets up vibrations. Though it is structurally safe, the frame actually moves in the tower currently. So the bells haven’t been rung fully for quite a while, principally because those vibrations start to knock the frame against the other structure of the wall.”

Before they were taken to the foundry, the bells were on display for the public in the church, and a special blessing service was held.

The bells will be reinstalled in the church in the spring, hopefully in time for Easter.