[Bell Historians] St. Mary's Cricklade

[Nick Bowden]

From: Philip Denton
If anyone is aware what happened to the former tenor at St. Mary's, 
Cricklade, Wiltshire, I would be very interested to know.

This is the smaller of the two medieval churches in the town. According to 
Walters' Wiltshire survey, there were three bells here by Thomas Rudhall, 
1779, and a Rudhall Sanctus bell of 1733 (Abraham II.)

Trying to piece together the story from various sources, I believe the 
following to be correct. The three bells were removed from the tower in 
1979, as they were considered to be unsafe. The church was declared 
redundant in 1981, and has been used by the Roman Catholic Church from 1984 
to the present day. The Sanctus bell remains in the tower.

In 1979, the second (diameter 29.50") was added as a treble to the ring at 
nearby St. Sampson's, Cricklade, augmenting the ring to six; after tuning 
and removal of canons, its weight is now 5-0-4, according to Dove.

In c1984, another bell from St. Mary's was installed as the treble at 
Tattingstone, Suffolk. Weighing 4.75 cwt, presumably this was the treble at 
St. Mary's. It is a semitone sharp in relation to the back five at 
Tattingstone.

If anyone can improve on the above, or correct any inaccuracies, I would be 
grateful. And does anyone know what happened to the tenor from St. Mary's? 
Presumably it would weigh 6-7 cwt. One source from the church suggested that 
it also went to Suffolk c1984, but a Dove search has failed to locate it. Of 
course, there are many churches in Suffolk without rings, and therefore 
without Dove entries - or indeed, it might be elsewhere...

Philip
>>

I have been unable to locate the notes I gathered following my visit to St. 
Mary's Cricklade in July 2008, but from memory the former tenor (weighing 
5-2-7 I think? note Db+2, 1110Hz) is now 2/6 at Catsfield, Sussex. I wonder 
what happened to the plan to hang these bells for ringing?

As well as the Sanctus bell at St. Mary's there is also now a slightly 
larger clock bell dated 1876.
Nick