Tune or re-cast?

[Izabelle Thompson]

We are currently thinking about restoring the bells at Brancepeth and 
are undecided as to what to do. After the fire, 3 need recasting, and 
the remaining 5 have been shot-blasted and 2 of these have been 'tonally 
dulled'. They are a Taylor's eight of 1889 and, according to local 
ringers, never sounded very nice. We have asked Taylor's for quotes to 
recast 3 bells and tune the rest (removing the canons), and also to 
recast all 8. Taylor's are apparently not keen to recast them all as 
the bells are pre-Simpson tuned, with some of the harmonics out, and 
they wish to correct the harmonics and tune the new bells in a similar 
way to produce an 'old sounding ring'. We're not sure what the best 
thing to do is, but have heard that some other jobs where they have 
tried to do something similar with tuning haven't produced very good 
results (no examples were given). Do anyone have any advice on what we 
should do?

Many Thanks,

Izabelle Thompson (DUSCR Master)