Fw: Harry Stokes, bellhanger

[David Bryant]

Hello All,

I recently received the following email from Mr Roger Stokes, who is the
Great Grandson of the bellhanger Harry Stokes. I thought both his email and
its attachments are likely to be of interest to a number of people besides
myself. The attachments are rather large so I'll upload them to the pictures
section of the Yahoo page. Does anyone know anything about the 'Hooper'
mentioned in the email?

David

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Stokes" <rstokes at w...>
To: <djb122 at y...>
Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 7:09 PM
Subject: Harry Stokes, bellhanger


Dear David,

Whilst doing a search on the internet for variants on the Stokes family I
stumbled across your website which contains references to our family. I
myself am the GGson of Harry Stokes (the 1st.), who was later followed by
Harry Stokes (2nd.) and later my late father also Harry Stokes! However he
was not a bellhanger but a farmer. My line of the family have lived in the
village since 1535, and we have a family tree back to then!

I looked at your entry on West Buckland, and see that you were requiring
some information on the 1902 bell repairs. I have all the day books of the
bellhanging and general repairs for a period from approx. 1898 - 1930's, and
have looked up the West Buckland entry which was dilligently recorded, as
was everything those days. I have attached a shrunken down scan of this
entry which may be of interest to you. It is still rather large for e-mail,
but if made smaller becomes inelligible. The full size copy is quite clear,
and if you wanted one I would be happy to send you one.

I have also attached a picture of the Stokes Bellhanging team of 1906, which
may be of interest to you. The team travelled what were great distances in
those days, and I believe that they may have done some work on York Minster.

Prior to 1900, I believe that HS 1st. was in partnership with a chap called
Hooper, but I do not have any detail of this. If you have any I would be
interested to know the details.

Whilst I am not a campanologist, my mother was the daughter of William
Arthur Hughes of the Whitechapel Foundry, and my cousin (as you probably
well know) carries on the business. He is of course Alan Hughes. My mother
and father originally met due to the contact between the two families - so
there you are!

In 1999 I compiled a book "Woodbury -the Twentieth Century Revisited" to
record all the available old photographs of the period. I currently now have
a digital collection of some 1500+. Amongst those are a few "bell" ones, and
some of Harry Stokes workshop here in Woodbury. However, somewhere in my
loft I probably have the internal measurements of the towers of half the
churches in the country!

I like you am currently trying to put together a website - mine of Woodbury
today and yesterday. At the moment there are approx 100 old Woodbury
postcards on line, but I hope to add many more in due course. It all takes
time in between everything else!

Hope the attached is of interest.

Best wishes,

Roger Stokes
Sunnybank
The Arch
Woodbury
Exeter
Devon UK.
EX5 1LL.
Tel: (+44) 01395 232350 (Home)
Tel: (+44) 01395 232276 (Park)
e-mail: rstokes at w...
web: www.webbersfarm.co.uk
web: www.woodbury-devon-uk.eclipse.co.uk