[Bell Historians] Heythrop, Oxon, and Albrighton, Shropshire

[David Cawley]

Well, if he didn't have a tuning machine, he must have popped across the river and chatted up his friends at Warner's or Whitechapel to tune the two largest Heythrop bells for him. The evidence is there in the bells themselves as two of us have pointed out on this rather extended subject.
In his little chime of six at Keston, near Bromley, 1888, tenor 21.3/16" diameter = 2-cwt, the treble, fourth and fifth have been tuned, each in slightly different areas.
Likewise, many of the bells in the chime of 13 (1879) at Roehampton have been tuned.
These two chimes represent the start and finish of his bellfounding adventures. 
Richard is correct about Shipbourne; far more satisfactory are his maiden eight at St Andrew, Kingsbury, ex-Wells St

DLC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Richard Offen 
To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2004 11:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Bell Historians] Heythrop, Oxon, and Albrighton, Shropshire



> We had a pleasant ring at Heythrop in 1979 before the tenor wheel 
was
> (sadly) replaced by a lever. Like all T C Lewis's (not very many) 
bells,
> they are beautiful castings with quite interesting tuning. And 
while the
> bells now at Kingsbury may be a maiden eight, not all Lewis's bells 
were:
> he had a tuning machine and used it quite extensively on two of the 
Heythrop
> bells.
> 

Are you sure he had a tuning machine? I quote from George Elphick's 
Church Bells of Sussex:

"He was by nature an artist and set himself very high standards. 
About 1878 he started up as a bellfounder and always cast maiden 
bells, allowing no subsequent tuning whatsoever. To obtain his 
heaviest ring of eight - St Andrew's, Wells Street (now Kingsbury) - 
he cast more than twenty bells to obtain the desired results."

Certainly his ring of six at Shipbourne, in Kent, are a miden peal.

R.


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