Spurious Dove "exact" tenor weights

[Andrew Bull]

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

-----Original Message-----
From: David Bryant [mailto:david at b...]
Sent: 22 July 2003 15:21
To: Bell Historians
Subject: [Bell Historians] Taunton & Somerset Founders
=20
Does anyone come across a reliable source for the 19-3-14 given by Dove
for the tenor at St James? Neither George Massey nor myself found
any source for this, and from its dimensions I doubt if the bell is more
than about 18 cwt.
=20
There still seems to be a number of spurious "exact" tenor weights in Dove,
even if one does not include instances where the canons have been removed
without the bell being re-weighed. Earlier this year I looked into a few
missing details with Nick Bowden for his South Gloucestershire list, and
found spurious exact tenor weights at three towers within a few miles of
each other. Tytherington, given as 12-0-18, has a Taylor treble, but apart
from this do not appear to have had any attention since the L & J rehang of
1884. The tenor, at 37 inches diameter, is too small to be 12-0-18; could i=
n
be just co-incidence that Tysoe, Warks, the tower above Tytherington in
Dove, is also 12-0-18? Tortworth, where the Jefferies & Price tenor is give=
n
as 12-2-25, were rehung by Taylors in 1959, but one of the very kind "fount=
s
of all knowledge" checked the appropriate details, and found that the work
had been carried out in the tower. This tenor would most likely weigh aroun=
d
12=BD cwt.
=20
The most interesting of the three was Iron Acton - given as 13-0-23 in F.
The tenor is actually heavier than the Dove weight, at around 15=BD cwt. Fi=
ve
lighter Taylor bells were added in 1884 to a Jefferies & Price bell, but a
check of the records revealed that the tenor had never left the tower.
13-0-23 was the as-cast weight of the fifth, which Taylors had mistakenly
put on the invoice instead of the finished weight. The tenor, 44 5/8 inches
in diameter, has never been weighed.
=20
I'll offer a final case - Shepton Mallett, Somerset. Tenor given as 24-3-25=
,
cast by Thomas Rudhall in 1773, was rehung by L & J in 1910 with the canons
removed. Neither of the all-knowing Christophers can find a source for the
24-3-25; at 51=BC inches in diameter, I calculate the tenor to weigh around
23=BD cwt.
=20
Andrew Bull
=20

This email originated externally and has been scanned by MessageLabs



________________________________________________________________________
Internet E-mail communications are not secure and therefore the
Khaos Technologies Group does not accept legal responsibility for the
contents of this message. Any views or opinions presented are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the
Khaos Technologies Group unless otherwise specifically stated.

This email has been scanned for all viruses by the MessageLabs SkyScan
service. For more information on a proactive anti-virus service working
around the clock, around the globe, visit http://www.messagelabs.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/pipermail/bell-historians/attachments/20030723/253b571d/attachment.html>