LLEWELLINS & JAMES, ETC

[Susan Dalton]

Further to the recent bits and pieces about L & J, they did indeed get the
Thornaby-on-Tees job on the back of Stockton. An interesting point is that
the 4 new bells augmenting Stockton downwards to 10, and all 8 at Thornaby,
were claimed at the time to have been cast to match the profiles of Samuel
Smith of York¹s 4 bells in the existing light ring of 6 at Stockton.

L & J¹s first all-iron-and-steel low-side frame I am aware of was installed
at Clapton- in-Gordano in 1897. Keevil followed in 1903 and other early
ones were Swindon St Mark in 1904 and Kemble in 1905. I don¹t think L & J
started using Taylor-type box-section iron stocks at all generally until
1911 (e.g. Mere, Wilts.) and even a lot of their 1911 jobs have wooden
stocks (e.g. Dyrham and Upwey). Mere, like Cheddar in 1914, is a complete
8-bell installation in the style of Taylors.

Richard Jones and I measured the pitches at Cheddar a few years ago. L &
J¹s first efforts at true-harmonic tuning (which I think these and the tenor
at Bristol St Philip & St Jacob were) may not have been perfect but some
lovers of idiosyncrasy, myself included, feel a bit sad about the recent
replacement of their 3 bells of 1914 at Cheddar: they were surely at least
as good as, if not better than, the assorted other bells in that ring.

Many of L & J¹s bells tuned on the ³Simpsonian principle², as they called
it, were really very good and I think only with the heaviest 2 of their 4
bells in the old ring at Bishopstoke (1919-21) did they totally disgrace
themselves.

Certainly Cyril Johnston (of G & J) imitated Taylors¹ bells, frames and
fittings quite unashamedly from 1907 onwards. He got so hooked on
Taylor-type H-frames that for a while the Croydon foundry installed nothing
else, even in towers like Wimborne Minster (1911) where there would have
been ample room to install a low-side frame and it would have been kinder to
the tower (and the ringers) to have done so.

So far as I am aware G & J used 4 patterns of metal stock. For canon-less
bells Taylor-type cast iron box-section stocks were used up to 1924 and
occasionally thereafter, and G & J¹s own web-section type from 1924 onwards.
The earlier canon-retainers were of cast iron and had a tendency to crack,
e.g. Toller Porcorum (1937); they were superseded by the visually ungainly
steel type.

Another Taylor imitator was the bellhanger Thomas Doble of Taunton who
installed high-sided A-frames in a number of Somerset towers and one in
Dorset long after Taylors had ceased to use them. Two of them, at Langport
and Puckington, were accused by architects of damaging their respective
towers and both were replaced after a short time by oak frames.

Warners did not imitate Taylors but did their own thing(s) ­ and very
peculiar some of them were too. Their change-over date from old-style
tuning and old-fashioned hanging to modern was sometime in 1911. It is many
years since I went to Oatlands Park but I rather think the bells there (and
at Dunecht/Haddington) were cast and tuned pre-²Simpson². Kings Somborne
tenor is a ³Simpson² bell cast in that year.

Finally Newnham-on-Severn, Glos. The story of what happened in 1889 was
reported in Bell News (pp. 103 and 339) and Church Bells (7th June). It was
Warners who recast the 4th of 6 which was cracked, added a treble and tenor,
and installed a new iron frame and fittings. The other 5 of the existing 6
bells were retained at that time. However, everything was swept away five
and a half years later, as already noted, when Mears crammed the present
much heavier ring of 8 into this rather slender tower.

Christopher Dalton