Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly

[Richard Offen]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, "Love, Dickon" 
<dickon.love at ...> wrote:
>
> I was given permission to view the mysterious chime of bells at the 
Fortnum & Mason store in Piccadilly last month. I identifed them as a 
Mears & Stainbank chime of 17 bells dated 1962. Thanks to NT we have 
a little more information. The results (with photographs) can be seen 
on my Westminster site:
> 
> http://westminster.lovesguide.com
> 
> I hope to put a video on in due course showing the little dance 
made by the figures of Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason, along with one of the 
airs that is played during it.
> 
> DrL

Along similar lines, I recently bought a copy of the book "Music in 
the Market Place", which is primarily a history of the huge organ in 
the Wannamaker Store in Philadelphia.   

When the book arrived, I was delighted to discover that a whole 
chapter was devoted to the huge G & J bell which was cast and meant 
to have been ready in time for the celebrations of 150th anniversary 
of American Independence.   Alas, according to the book, after 
tuning, the bell was discovered to have a serious flaw in its casting 
(does anyone know what this was?) and had to be recast 
yet another 
of Cyril Johnston's highly profitable exploits!

The second bell was cast, tune and despatched supposedly in time to 
chime midnight to mark the beginning of 1927.   Unfortunately, in the 
presence of a large number of dignitaries, the mechanism failed and 
the bell remained stubbornly silent!   Eventually, but not that 
fateful night, this 15 ton giant (the first of G & J's series of 
monster, tuned bells) found its voice, only to cause disappointment 
because it could not be heard 30 miles away as had confidently been 
predicted!

R