[Bell Historians] Eastry Sanctus Bell

[Richard Offen]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, "David Cawley" <dave at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Some of this seems to be from an off-list exchange; or did I again 
miss it?
> 
> Gosh there are some howlers in these remarks about Eastry, not 
least of which is the remark about the replacement of "the old 
cracked fourth". It was the cracked third which was replaced. The 
fourth isn't cracked. The old third was found to be cracked by 
Taylors in 1934. In 1967 they put the bells on ball-bearings, noting 
again the crack. The bell was replaced in 1975 after quite an 
extended correspondence between Alan Berry, Nick Davies, myself, the 
DAC and the parish (and Taylors). The foundry's philistine option of 
recasting one of only four bells by Henry Wilnar of Borden gave way 
to replacement. The bell was given as a memorial and hung on the 
Bowell fittings of its predecessor. The odd thing is that JT&Co, when 
estimating for recasting, slagged off the welding option, amongst 
other things, because the cracked bell was "deficient in weight and 
thickness". And the new bell is 2 1/2" inches SMALLER and no doubt 
around 2-cwt lighter than the "deficient" bell!
> 
> True they are not a well-tuned five, the two Taylor bells (treble & 
new 3rd) being as much as 19# and 21# in respect of the tenor. 
Neither is an old style bell (as has been said of the new 3rd) and I 
will produce statements in support of that in my next posting. But 
they sound impressive enough if not inspiring, not least when you 
ring the tenor through a peal as I did on June 1st 1968. The St 
Simon's was not fun.
> 
> DLC 

My apologies for referring to the fourth at Eastry, I meant the 
third - it was late at night when I posted my communication!

I entirely agree with David that the treble is an excellent bell (as 
one would expect from a 1902 Taylor bell), but the third!   Is it 
really a true-harmonic bell?   My memory must be even worse than I 
thought!   I remember that we were singularly unimpressed when we 
(the KCACR bell hanging team) hung the new bell and tried the 
refashioned five out!

R