From georgebellringer at gmail.com Sun Mar 1 10:59:51 2026 From: georgebellringer at gmail.com (georgebellringer at gmail.com) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 10:59:51 -0000 Subject: [Bell Historians] A Taylor bell in western Canada In-Reply-To: References: <270606068.2339263.1772256056999.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <270606068.2339263.1772256056999@mail.yahoo.com> <1494130341.2337800.1772257554417@mail.yahoo.com> <340b01dca881$9f328cd0$dd97a670$@gmail.com>

Message-ID: <002e01dca96a$878c7930$96a56b90$@gmail.com> 1912 Vernon Public Buildings Canada - British Columbia 1 7.0.16 900 A 34" 180/227 George Dawson From: Bell-historians On Behalf Of Ken Webb via Bell-historians Sent: 28 February 2026 15:46 To: Chris Pickford ; Bell Historians Cc: Ken Webb Subject: Re: [Bell Historians] A Taylor bell in western Canada 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 _____ From: Ken Webb Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2026 7:35:51 AM To: Bell Historians

Cc: Chris Pickford 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, > 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 _______________________________________________ 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: