[Bell Historians] Preshute - all bells added to NBR as 'On Pres List' between 2009 & 2015 (same for Westbury)

[Andrew Bull]

MRTH -  I remember their attitude towards the bells at Catworth,
Cambridgeshire, they said that a peal of bells which contained two bells of
the same note would make a "characterful ring" - this resulted in a fine
sounding medieval bell being removed from the peal and hung dead along side.
They have recently written to the parish of South Wraxall, in Wiltshire,
stating that they not support some minimal tuning of the 3 of the 6 bells,
to bring them into a true musical scale. Hopefully the chancellor has seen
sense on this one...

 


I despair when it comes to the attitude of some of these bodies regarding
retuning of old bells. They do not seem to understand that there are "good"
old bells which are good enough to leave untuned, "decent" old bells which
can be improved by minimal retuning whilst retaining their character, and
"bad" old bells which need retuning. There was an extraordinary episode in
South Wales concerning Michaelston-y-Fedw, but discussion of that here would
be getting off-topic. Suffice it to say that most of these so-called
"conservationists" are not competent to adjudicate on such a complex subject
as bell-tuning. I'll bet that congregations are not subjected to out-of-tune
or badly-toned organs.

 

Andrew Bull

 

 

 

  _____  

From: Bell-historians
[mailto:bell-historians-bounces at lists.ringingworld.co.uk] On Behalf Of
Matthew Higby via Bell-historians
Sent: 31 January 2021 11:42
To: bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk
Cc: Matthew Higby
Subject: Re: [Bell Historians] Preshute - all bells added to NBR as 'On Pres
List' between 2009 & 2015 (same for Westbury)

 

 

That said, I am curious to know how these Wiltshire rings have crept into
the lists - and why equally eligible rings elsewhere haven't yet made it. I
suspect that someone in Salisbury Diocese has been quite astute and ahead of
the game

 

That's easy - because it was the opinion of someone, that they should be
listed!

 

I remember being at a CBC bell advisors conference some years back, where
they laid out their plans for 'expanding' the scope of bells which they
considered worthy of preservation. That included 'modern rings of
exceptional tonal quality' among a number of other things. I remember Alan
Hughes pointing out that it they continued along those lines, they could end
up listing the majority of the bells in the UK, and he expressed concerns
over the knock-on effect on the trade!

 

I believe the Wiltshire rings were listed with this review in mind.

 

I find that the attitude of the CBC towards work on listed bells is really
inconsistent these days. It states in their 'code of practice' that "a ring
of bells should sound balanced and in tune". They have however, completely
contradicted that in their advice to parishes. 

 

Often faculty applications insist that the CBC is consulted on work to
listed bells. Their response is normally "The CBC feels that the parish have
not made a good enough case for us to consider"  I have lost count of the
number of times I have read this line. The last few of their replies that I
have seen are also riddled with factual errors (which is a shame). I
remember their attitude towards the bells at Catworth, Cambridgeshire, they
said that a peal of bells which contained two bells of the same note would
make a "characterful ring" - this resulted in a fine sounding medieval bell
being removed from the peal and hung dead along side. They have recently
written to the parish of South Wraxall, in Wiltshire, stating that they not
support some minimal tuning of the 3 of the 6 bells, to bring them into a
true musical scale. Hopefully the chancellor has seen sense on this one...

 

When I first had dealings with the CBC, you could rely on their expertise to
give balanced advice - these days they appear to have inexperienced staff
who prefer to push conservation beyond all else. I have no idea who sits on
the CBC clocks and bells committee these days - perhaps someone could
enlighten us??

 

With all good wishes,

 

Matthew 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/pipermail/bell-historians/attachments/20210131/7cf5bf33/attachment.html>