[Bell Historians] A Taylor bell in western Canada

Sat Feb 28 15:45:33 GMT 2026

This confirms a clock at Vernon Post Office was provided in 1912 /1913 
by Smiths.

https://www.readersdigest.ca/travel/canada/vernon-b-c-post-office-clock/

Ken

On 28/02/2026 09:39, Chris Pickford wrote:
> As soon as I can grab 15 minutes at home to look at this properly (and 
> read the article rather than just glance at it) I'm sure I'll be able 
> to make sense of this. I only had time to check the index and cut and 
> paste the text before leaving this morning
> C
>
> Sent from Outlook for Android <https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Ken Webb <ken44webb at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, February 28, 2026 7:35:51 AM
> *To:* Bell Historians <bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk>
> *Cc:* Chris Pickford <pickford5040 at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Bell Historians] A Taylor bell in western Canada
> The article mentions Vernon as the original location.
>
> Ken
>
>
> On Sat, 28 Feb 2026, 07:12 Chris Pickford via Bell-historians, 
> <bell-historians at lists.ringingworld.co.uk> wrote:
>
>     Here’s the text (i.e. without the copyright photos)
>
>     Headline: Old church bell will peal back time
>
>     By Ron Seymour
>
>     The Kelowna Courier
>
>     An old church bell now hanging in a downtown Kelowna garage will
>     resound in a new South Pandosy urban plaza.
>
>     The 850 lb. brass bell, cast in England in 1912, has been in the
>     care of 75-year-old twin brothers Clinton and Orison Wood since
>     St. Paul’s United Church on Lakeshore Road was demolished more
>     than a decade ago.
>
>     “It's connected to our front door by an electric clapper, and
>     we've been using it as a doorbell all these years,” Clinton said
>     with a laugh during a Thursday interview. “Even though it's in the
>     garage, the bell is very loud, so anyone who rings our front door
>     gets quite a shaking up.”
>
>     The Wood brothers are glad the bell is destined to return to the
>     property where St. Paul’s stood for 55 years before being
>     demolished in 2015. Local developer Shane Worman plans to erect
>     the bell in the middle of an urban public square in a commercial
>     redevelopment approved for the property this week by city council.
>
>     “That bell means a lot to our family,” Orison Wood said. “I always
>     think of our father when it rings. But it sounds like a good idea
>     to get it back where a lot of people can enjoy it again.”
>
>     Trustees of Central Okanagan United Church, which owns the bell,
>     have approved its transfer to Worman. “We’re delighted that Shane
>     wants to do this. It’s such a lovely plan, bringing the bell back
>     to where it belongs,” church trustee Beryl Itani said.
>
>     The bell was cast by the John Taylor Bell Foundry in Loughborough,
>     England. The still-in-business company, established in 1839, is
>     described on its website as the last remaining bell foundry in the
>     United Kingdom.
>
>     Builders of the Dominion Post Office in Vernon placed an order for
>     the bell and it was on top of that building until its demolition
>     in the mid-‘50s. The Wood brothers’ father, Ernest Orison Wood,
>     arranged through friends in the construction industry to have the
>     bell shipped to Kelowna for St. Paul’s United Church, which opened
>     in 1958.
>
>     But when the bell arrived, church leaders didn’t have the money to
>     build a proper bell tower. So the bell sat, half-forgotten on a
>     wooden pallet behind the church for almost 20 years while an
>     electronic bell was used on Sundays to summon parishioners.
>
>     Its neglect, unsurprisingly, rankled Ernest Wood. “He didn’t like
>     that the church board just kept tabling the issue, hemming and
>     hawing, but there wasn’t much he could do about it,” Clinton Wood
>     said.
>
>     Ernest Orison Wood died in 1976, at age 90, never having seen the
>     bell put into service at the church. After his death, his widow
>     Jessie spearheaded a fundraising campaign to construct a large
>     frame and headstock. In 1980, the bell was finally hoisted to a
>     place of prominence near the church’s front door.
>
>     But it was still a silent bell. It wasn't rung for another 19 years.
>
>     The original clapper had long since been lost. And it wasn't until
>     a church member, Adriaan Boek, went to Holland and found a
>     suitable clapper that the bell finally gonged for the first time
>     in Kelowna, in 1999.
>
>     A headline at the time in The Kelowna Courier said: ‘Bell rings
>     for Jessie’.
>
>     From 1990 to 2014, the bell rang on the hour throughout the week,
>     heard throughout a large part of the South Pandosy neighborhood.
>     It was not only a community landmark; it served as something of a
>     headstone, as the Wood family buried Ernest’s ashes at its base.
>
>     The church was demolished in 2015 to make way for an ill-fated
>     commercial and resdential project planned by the congregation.
>     Before the wrecking ball was summoned, however, the Wood brothers
>     got a jackhammer, cut through the bell tower’s concrete base, and
>     brought their father’s ashes home for safekeeping.
>
>     After the church's demolition, the congregation's ambitious
>     redevelopment plan fell apart with soaring costs, and the land was
>     sold for $5.5 million.
>
>     "We were all sad when we left the building for the last time, we
>     shed some tears," Clinton Wood says. "And then when the whole plan
>     collapsed it was really a devastating thing. A lot of people were
>     really angry and left the church, but we didn't. You don't throw
>     away your church because of an unfortunate circumstance that
>     didn't work out."
>
>     Local builder Shane Worman bought the former St. Paul’s site a few
>     years ago and won final approval this week for a project
>     consisting of three buildings arrayed around an urban plaza open
>     to the public. The development has less density than would have
>     been possible on the site, and considerably more trees and
>     landscaping than required - features that prompted Coun. Luke
>     Stack to describe the project as “perfect” during Monday’s council
>     meeting.
>
>     The Wood brothers, who both now devoutly attend Central Okanagan
>     United Church in downtown Kelowna, are pleased with the bell's
>     pending relocation back to the South Pandosy neighborhood.
>
>     And they think their father will be too.
>
>     “I know this for sure,” Clinton Wood said, “Dad will be watching
>     from the other side.”
>
>     I haven’t had time to identify this particular bell in the Taylor
>     records (1912) yet, but around that time Taylors supplied numerous
>     clock bells – mostly about 7 cwt - for public buildings in Canada
>     through clockmakers Smith of Derby who were contracted to supply
>     the clocks. This must be one of them, but it’s not indexed as
>     “Kelowna”.
>
>     */Chris Pickford/*
>
>     Knighton (Powys), UK
>
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