[Bell Historians] Charlton Adam, Somerset

[Chris Pickford]

I'm not sure we shouldn't give this sort of "restoration" a chance - and do it in a way that is intended to succeed (rather than set up to fail). 

But it does need to be at the right tower - somewhere where the bells, frame and fittings really are significant enought to merit the full conservation treatment and where the local people (parishioners and ringers) are willing and informed participants on what will of necessity be an experimental venture. Moreover, there ought be be some compromise on conservation (e.g. necessary work on crown staples, quarter turning, and even things like the fitting of ball bearings concealed within old-fashioned covers) to make it work properly and secure a reasonable term of useful life for the restored installation.

I was at the official try-outs at Staunton Harold pre and post-restoration, and I'm well aware of the difficulties there. But let's not condemn the approach because of one bad job. I think the inflexibility of the client at Staunton Harold (insistence on like-for-like replacement of parts with no allowance for improvement) coupled with their expectations of the levels of future use (very limited occasional ringing) make it a poor case to regard as "the norm" for this type of restoration.  Swaffham Prior (much criticised in the RW at the time but fundamentally from a strong anti-conservation standpoint) is another place where the approach has been tried and with - I believe - a reasonable degree of success.

In a case like Charlton Adam (if the heritage value merits such an approach) a conservationist restoration should not merely enable the bells to be rung - but should leave a job on which "ordinary ringers" can ring regularly without undue physical effort and achieve a reasonable standard of striking. AND, there should be enough of the original fabric left intact for the conservationist approach to have been worthwhile. 

I think I'm optimistic enough to believe that with the right technical input and the right mind-set this could be achieved in some cases. But it involves more than simplistic like-for-like replacement (the conservationist baseline approach) because installations that didn't work well in the first place - and many "village carpenter" jobs spectacularly didn't! - won't magically work well now after simple repair. Bells hung by regular bellhangers of past centuries might, on the other hand, be expected to perform tolerably well after sympathetic restoration.

Problematic, maybe, but possibly worth a try with - to stress again - local assent, with a few of the fairly small number of genuine eighteenth and early nineteenth century installations that remain largely intact. People other than ringers assume that there must be some merit in performing on genuine period instruments and find it strange that this is something that doesn't seem to interest us. Having been naughty enough in my youth to have rung on a fair number of old-style installations, I would say that there is some fun to be had here that we're in danger of denying to future generations of ringers if we eradicate the "old stock" completely. Ringing on period instruments may require slightly different skills - sally ticklers, stay away please! - but what's wrong with a bit of a challenge, something outside the norm?

Entrenchment on both sides of the conservation debate is a significant part of the problem at the moment. Let's not reject out of hand ideas that could - even if only in a limited number of very special cases - lead to compromise solutions that would broadly satisfy all sides.

Written more to provoke thought than out of deep conviction.

CP
            
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