[Bell Historians] Great Bells of Britain - Cobh

[Carl S Zimmerman]

At 09:26 +0800 06/11/17, Chris Pickford wrote:
>I heard a suggestion that additional big bells had been installed 
>with the carillon at Cobh, in Eire. I see that only the 1916 Taylor 
>bass bell is included in the diary list. Does anyone have any 
>information on this reported augmentation, and does it warrant a 
>change to the existing list?
_____

Subsequent comments from others have only muddied the waters, as well 
as leaving me disappointed that no one has found the following page:
   http://www.gcna.org/data/IECOBHSC.HTM
Although that doesn't fully answer the question posed by Chris, it 
does confirm that the two bells added by Eijsbouts in 1998 were the 
missing bass semitones, so that the carillon is now fully chromatic 
across its 4-octave range.

I can confirm that the present bass bell of the carillon is the 
original bass bell of the 16-bell chime installed in 1914; the 
additions of 1915 (one bell), 1916 (25 bells, making it a carillon) 
and 1958 (5 bells, extending the range to four octaves) were all 
smaller bells.  These 47 all came from Taylor; only the two basses of 
1998 came from Eijsbouts.

The British Carillon Society (of which Adrian Gebruers is a member 
and past president) has published the weight of the bass bell as 
67-2-22, cited by Chris in a later message as "the original Taylor 
one."  That is equivalent to 3439 kg.  I do not know the source of 
the World Carillon Federation article which gives the weight as 3629 
kg, though Adrian is also past president of the WCF!  I shall inquire 
of him for clarification of this point.

As to inclusion in "Great Bells of Britain", Chris's criterion is 20 
cwt, or 2240 lbs (actual or reputed).  At ringing scale, based on the 
13 rings in Dove Online which have tenors of that weight, the pitch 
of such a bell might range from D to F.  At chiming scale, it's 
between E and F.  The last time I checked Chris's list, it included 
the first 6 Taylor bells in the Cobh carillon, all from 1916.  Since 
the two Eijsbouts basses are both heavier than the third Taylor bell 
there, both of them merit inclusion in Chris's list.

However, the Diary seems to have a floating criterion of about 2.5 
tons (2-10-0), probably based on how many entries will fit on two 
pages.  (This comment is based on the 2004 diary, which is the most 
recent that I have.)  Since the second Taylor bell at Cobh is 2-8-2, 
the larger Eijsbouts bell must merit inclusion in the Diary list but 
the smaller does not.  I don't have exact weights for either bell, 
but I'm sure that I can get them from Adrian.  I shall inquire.

Carl