[Bell Historians] Old Bond Street, High Beach, etc.

Mon Feb 8 00:02:36 GMT 2021

Fascinating -- thanks!  You could add quite a bit of useful detail to the Wikipedia article about High Beach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Beach).
The Epping Forest ridge sounds like what geologists would call a glacial moraine, of which there are many in various parts in the northern USA.

Carl 
P.S.  The Love's Guide page on Old Bond Street has long been referenced from my page, and is much more elegant than my work.  I should give it a better reference.

P.P.S.  The Atkinson Carillon was either the first or second carillon that I visited in England after arriving there during the drought-ridden summer of 1976 to assume a 3-year posting with the USAF at RAF Croughton.

    On Sunday, February 7, 2021, 2:16:14 PM CST, La Greenall via Bell-historians <bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk> wrote:  

  Thanks very much Mr. Zimmerman.

 On the spelling of High Beech/Beach, both versions have survived since before spelling was standardised, and each has had a theory developed around it.

 What is now Epping Forest is the tiny remnant of a once much greater forest. The reason why it was the last remnant to survive is that it is on a long, narrow, and very high (in the local landscape) ridge of gravel, and so the 'soil' is too poor to be worth using as farmland. Only the onslaught of London's villas could threaten it.

 If you will indulge me a bit, my mother (an amateur geologist who spent years walking the forest, collecting its pebbles, and identifying where in Britain they started their journey from) told me long ago that this ridge of gravel was pushed right across Britain in a roughly SSE direction by the icebergs of the last Ice Age. They would of course carry great boulders vast distances, but would also grind rocks up into smaller rocks and eventually rounded gravel, just like beach gravel, which would roll along at the feet of the icebergs. When the Ice Age passed its zenith and the bergs began to melt, these 'feet' of gravel were left where they are, and Epping Forest sits on one of them.

 This explains one of the theories - the ridge has been supposed by some when geology was in its infancy to have been the remains of an ancient beach, raised up by tectonic forces. Hence, "High Beach".

 The forest's trees today are mainly oak, beech and silver birch, and the beech trees are most significant because they were for centuries coppiced, pollarded and especially lopped, the latter being a technical term relating to the permitted gathering of wood in a royal forest by those with the rights to do so, meaning cutting off any branch above a certain height (was it 6 or 8 feet? can't remember.

 This was practised right up until the Epping Forest Act of 1878, since when the lopped trunks have sprouted new branches which grow out at wild angles from that sort of height. That is why most of the images you get to see of Epping Forest feature these 'strange unusual trees' so much. No prizes for guessing, it also explains the second spelling's theory.

 For example, a lovely image here:
https://geographical.co.uk/uk/discovering-britain/item/1441-the-peoples-forest

 But in truth both theories are younger than the spellings, which were both born in a time when either would do.

 I grew up on a country lane about one mile south of Waltham Abbey and about one mile west of High Beech. As a result, even in my later years I still know the forest's twists and turns far better than I do the town, for the forest was my childhood playground. Back then, all the road signs in the area, which must have dated to the first half of the 20th C, only ever used the spelling Beech, whilst Ordnance Survey maps only ever used the spelling Beach. To me, the local signs were and always will be correct, but the OS maps are also not incorrect.

 There is a similar story over the 'correct' spelling of the River Lea or Lee. Again, but spellings date back to a time when either was acceptable as above. But then one day, those who make laws in this land (but this time the Govt instead of the Ordnance Survey) picked one of the spellings for a specific purpose, and so that spelling (Lee) is the only one used in official and legal papers, whist the other only exists on old maps (even the OS maps say 'River Lea or Lee'). The specific purpose was the Lee Navigation, an artificial navigable canal which sits to the side of the natural river's many channels and follows alongside it from Hertford to the Thames.

 But in this case there is an even earlier spelling which both Lee and Lea are based on but neither is much like it. In Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman records it is spelt Ligean (and variants of course).

 Sorry to clog up a bell history website with this stuff - you can all shoot me now - I've got my blindfold on.

 Lawrence Greenall, Waltham Abbey

 Lawrence

 On 07/02/2021 17:39, Carl S Zimmerman wrote:

  Here are a few links relevant to the recent discussions: 
  British Carillon Society page about Old Bond Street:     http://www.britishcarillons.org/carillons-in-the-british-isles/london/ 
  TowerBells page about Old Bond Street:     http://www.towerbells.org/data/UKELNWFX.HTM 
  TowerBells page about High Beach:     http://www.towerbells.org/data/UKEHBCHI.HTM Although Google Maps calls this place High Beech, the Ordnance Survey maps (which I take to be authoritative) call it High Beach.  Both place names are found in the very extensive Church History on the parish Website:     https://www.highbeachchurch.org.uk/ The bells were apparently part of the furnishings of the construction of the "new church" in 1873, and were played from a weight-driven chiming machine until the present baton keyboard was installed in the 1960s.

  Wikipedia page about High Beach (High Beech):     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Beach 
  On "carillon" versus "carillion":     http://www.towerbells.org/data/carillion.html 
  My Website does not pretend to be complete in its coverage of chimes in the UK, whether they are made of conventional or hemispherical or tubular bells.  Nevertheless, suggestions for additions and corrections are always welcome.

   Carl Scott Zimmerman, Campanologist 
 Saint Louis, Missouri, USA -
  - 19th c. home of at least 37 bell founders or resellers 
 Tel. +1(314)821-8437 
 Webmaster for www.TowerBells.org
  * Avocation: tower bells
  * Recreation: handbells
  * Mission: church bells Webmaster for www.TSCChapter134.org

  _______________________________________________
Bell-historians mailing list
Bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk
https://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/listinfo/bell-historians

 _______________________________________________
Bell-historians mailing list
Bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk
https://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/listinfo/bell-historians

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/pipermail/bell-historians/attachments/20210208/bda4368b/attachment-0001.html>