[Bell Historians] Future Facsimile Books

[David Bryant]

"Are we saying that there are TWO other additions of 'Somerset' which 
have never been published? Very interesting!"

HB Walters more-or-less completed Somerset in the 1920s and before, and got
as far as advertising the book. However, it was never actually published and
the manuscript, which is partly typed and party handwritten, is now in the
Somerset Record Office in Taunton. There are a fair few known mistakes in
it, and it doesn't record the depth of detail which a modern publication
would, but it is still of considerably more use than Ellacombe.

In recent decades, George Massey (DAC Bells Adviser for Bath & Wells) has
been working on an up-to-date survey of Somerset. I believe he has pretty
much completed it, but I do not know whether he has any plans to publish it.
A few decades ago he published 'The Bells of Frome Deanery'.

"Does that make Ellacombe's 1875 'Somerset' rarer or just plain outdated?"

Ellacombe's Somerset is of course extremely outdated, and it wasn't
particularly accurate in the first place. It is, however, the only book to
date covering all of Somerset which has been published.

David