Taunton St James tenor

[andrewmbull]

David Bryant wrote:

It's by John Pennington (of Exeter ?), 1626. I attach a (not very 
good!)
photo - as you will see, it's quite short waisted. It's also a
nasty-sounding old bucket, but that's beside the point!

David

The tenor at Loders, Dorset, is by the same founder, same year - see 
Chris Dalton's Dorset part 2, page 403. This bell was slightly 
retuned by Whitechapel in 1927, and has also lost its canons. Using 
this bell to provide the thickness constant, I calculate the most 
likely weight of Taunton St. James tenor to be 17 cwt. Loders tenor 
is 48¼ inches in E-flat -.44 and weighs 19-1-3. Clearly, there is no 
way that Taunton St. James tenor, at 46½ inches in E, can weigh 19-3-
14.

It's interesting that Taunton tenor is a "nasty-sounding old bucket" 
(I've not heard the bell myself), while Chris Dalton describes its 
brother at Loders as "one of the loveliest-sounding bells in the 
county, having a warm mellow tone and nearly true harmonics." Perhaps 
Whitechapel's tuning machine worked a miracle at Loders?

Andrew Bull