Early sets of handbells.

[jim phillips]

 WB wrote:-

"The earliest set of handbells I've found is at the Mary Arden House and
Country Museum. I examined the bells in the 1980s and found them to be a set
of Cor bells, twelve in number, which had originally come from
Shipton-on-Stour. I would date them from about 1690 to 1710. They were not
all cast at the same time as they were by different members of the family.
I'm afraid I cannot be more specific as I'm unable to lay my hands on my
records, but "Musical Handbells", pp 22 and 23 discusses them."

This is much earlier than I would have thought and I wonder if the bells are
a diatonic set which could be used for change ringing and what sound do they
produce and how were they tuned (I cannot immediately look them up in the
book). Another question concerns 'pocket handbells' produced by Whitchapel
around the turn of the century. What was the maximum number that could be
obtained in a set? I can remember a large set (numerical) at Gwennap
(Cornwall) when I was at school but these have now gone. I know of another
set of eight pocket bells which were used in the trenches in WW1 and which
were subsequently won in a raffle by the late Reuben Sanders.