[Bell Historians] St Saviour's, Leicester

[D Cawley]

charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Leicester, St Saviour

The church is still in use, and still in good condition; a noble example of=
Sir Gilbert Scott's work. The Rector is Fr Alan Hawker, as pleasant a per=
son as you could wish, and who much regrets the loss of the bells two incum=
bents ago.

The sad story very briefly is that the church did need to raise money at a =
critical time. The then incumbent had no time for ringers (he subsequently=
came to St Mary's and tried to stop ringing here) and disliked bells. The=
y had been the subject of increasingly adverse reports, the last dated 1982=
, by which time they were 105 years old with only TLC bestowed on them. Th=
ough not condemned by the founders, the bells were silenced on that pretext=
, and within two years had been sold to Taylors. With all those other bel=
ls lying around they were the most vulnerable of Leicester's lost bells, bu=
t they weren't broken up until there just was no room and no takers.

Taylor's actually recommended the parish to sell the back 7 and leave the t=
reble as a service bell, and there were other offers to take them out at no=
cost to the parish and purchase them at scrap value - all of which was ign=
ored or rejected. The parish got =A314K for the bells, spent =A32.5K on ge=
tting them out and then a further sum on purchasing from E&S a 3-cwt Eijsbo=
uts bell, hung for swing chiming with a lever. The remaining money was spe=
nt at was admittedly a critical time in the life of St Saviour's.

The frame and many of the peal boards remain in the tower.

DLC=20


----- Original Message -----=20
From: andrewmbull <a.bull at s...>=20
To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com=20
Sent: 09 December 2002 11:48
Subject: [Bell Historians] St Saviour's, Leicester


As some group members know to their cost, I have for some time been=20
updating my list of towers visited with more conscise information=20
than was available at the time, with respect to founders, weights,=20
diameters, history of the individual ring. For much of this=20
information I am indebted to the great kindness of some members of=20
this list.
Over the weekend I was writing up some Leicester towers visited=20
during an open-day in 1982. Among these was St Saviours, a heavy=20
eight. I have full details of the bells themselves, and noted at the=20
time that these bells had in recent years been restored from an=20
unringable state. I have since noted from Dove and the list of lost=20
rings available on the Keltek website, that these bells were scrapped=20
in 1984.
Do any list members know why these bells were removed and scrapped ?=20
Is the church still open, or has it been closed and/or demolished ?
It would seem that 1984 was a bad year for ring of bells in=20
Leicester, the rings at All Saints and St John the Divine also being=20
removed in that year, but at least those rings went to new homes.

Andrew Bull


This message was sent to you via the Bell Historians' Mailing List. To un=
subscribe from the list send an email to bellhistorians-unsubscribe at yahoogr=
oups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.=20

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/pipermail/bell-historians/attachments/20021210/c5f2e267/attachment.html>