Various

[Susan Dalton]

Trouble with going away for a few days is that you come home to hundreds of
emails!

DOWNSIDE ABBEY. MRTH knows this bell much better than I do but I can report
that it has
1. On the inscription band a single line of cast inscription, including
the date 1900, and a line of border.
2. On the waist a cast Taylor mark in a roundel.
3. Also on the waist an incised roundel including the date 1903.
4. On strips fitted to the steel headstock further inscription relating
to the bell coming to Downside.
I might add that the bell is not a perfect casting, having porosity on top
of the crown, in addition to the unwanted and very audible fourth which
troubled Canon Nolloth when it was at Beverley Minster.

THOMAS PENNINGTON. The one who cast bells at Taunton St James, including the
tenor, is I believe the same man as cast bells for Yeovil, Loders (Dorset)
and elsewhere in the same year, 1626. See BB Dorset, pp 403-4. John Scott
was not sure at the time if this was Thomas I or II but thought probably II.

FACSIMILES. As I think I said earlier on this list, there is a good one of
1889 by Gillett & Co at Bradford Abbas. Taylors, M & S, and to some extent
G & J, all started doing facsimile inscriptions as a matter of course, when
requested, in the decade following the 1914-18 War, ie in the 1920s. Before
then, facsimiles were I think exceptional.

TYNTESFIELD. National Trust staff at the property now have the details of
the ex-Boston bell but I cannot force them to tell visitors about it! We do
not know where the 1815 Mears bell originally hung but presumably somewhere
on the pre-Victorian house on the site. Though so small, it could well have
been transferred to the former clock tower on the present house. The
extensive archives might provide the answer but these are not currently in
the hands of the NT.

HODDLESDEN, LANCS. Anybody know who cast the former ring of 6 here which
recently featured on this list?

Christopher Dalton