St Stephen's Church Bells, Winsham
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The church possesses a tower situated centrally between the nave and
chancel. The bells are rung on the ground floor, which is very unusual
and gives the congregation an opportunity to watch. The bells at Winsham
have the unfortunate reputation of being extremely difficult to ring,
mainly due to excessive unguided length of rope (but many people have
learned to ring here successfully and have no fear to ring any where
else).
As well as serving as a ringing chamber the area at the base of
the tower also contains the choir stalls (which were made from the
original old oak bell frames) that must be removed before ringing. On
the south wall is an Ellacombe chiming apparatus from which any of the
bells may be sounded and tunes can be played.
The bells were augmented from five to eight in 1894, when a former
heavier tenor bell was scrapped and the ring remodelled using the old
fourth bell as the tenor. The old second bell had to be recast to sharpen
it by a semitone to keep the bells in tune in a major scale. Thus only
three of the previous bells survive. The five new bells being cast and
hung in 1894. |
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The church possesses a ring of eight bells all as follows :-
| Bell |
|
Treble |
| Diameter |
|
28" (711mm) |
| Weight cwts.
qua. lbs |
|
(236kg) 4 - 2 - 16 |
| Note |
|
F |
| Date |
|
1894 |
| Founder |
|
Mears & Stainbank,
Whitechapel |
|
| Bell |
|
Second |
| Diameter |
|
29" (736mm) |
| Weight
cwts. qua. lbs |
|
(276kg) 5 - 1 -
20 |
| Note |
|
E |
| Date |
|
1894 |
| Founder |
|
Mears &
Stainbank, Whitechapel |
|
| Bell |
|
Third |
| Diameter |
|
30" (762mm) |
| Weight
cwts. qua. lbs |
|
(308kg) 6 - 0 -
7 |
| Note |
|
D |
| Date |
|
1894 |
| Founder |
|
Mears &
Stainbank, Whitechapel |
|
| Bell |
|
Fourth |
| Diameter |
|
32" (812mm) |
| Weight
cwts. qua. lbs |
|
(364kg) 7 - 0 -
18 |
| Note |
|
C |
| Date |
|
1894 |
| Founder |
|
Mears &
Stainbank, Whitechapel |
|
| Bell |
|
Fifth |
| Diameter |
|
34" (836mm) |
| Weight
cwts. qua. lbs |
|
(400kg) 7 - 3 -
13 |
| Note |
|
B |
| Date |
|
1875 |
| Founder |
|
Warner &
Sons, London |
|
| Bell |
|
Sixth |
| Diameter |
|
37" (940mm) |
| Weight
cwts. qua. lbs |
|
(433kg) 8 - 2 -
3 |
| Note |
|
A |
| Date |
|
1894 |
| Founder |
|
Mears &
Stainbank, Whitechapel |
|
| Bell |
|
Seventh |
| Diameter |
|
39" (990mm) |
| Weight
cwts. qua. lbs |
|
(535kg) 10 - 2 -
4 |
| Note |
|
G |
| Date |
|
1720 |
| Founder |
|
Thomas Wroth,
Wellington |
|
| Bell |
|
Tenor |
| Diameter |
|
43"
(1092mm) |
| Weight
cwts. qua. lbs |
|
(691kg) 13 - 2 -
11 |
| Note |
|
F |
| Date |
|
1583 |
| Founder |
|
William Cole,
Mudford (possibly) |
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We try to ring every first and third Sunday of the month at 10.00am,
but recently we have not had enough ringers to ring (we need a minimum of
six). We are now looking for some more people to come forward to learn
to ring or to chime, please contact Keith Fowler 01460 30731 or Rob
Simmonds 01460 66821 if you are interested - it takes up very little time.
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