St Nicolas Church Will Ring The Changes With New And Retuned Bells

Published on: 25 Mar, 2013
Updated on: 25 Mar, 2013

The bell tower at St Nicolas Church, at the foot of Guildford High Street, has fallen silent. Its 10 bells have been carefully removed and have been taken to bell founders John Taylor & Co at Loughborough.

St Nicolas Church’s PCC treasurer Patrick Andrew, Maya, churchwardens Marian Coom and Catherine Ferguson, and verger Jean Hutley, with one of the bells that has been taken down.

It is all part of the scheme to replace six of the bells with new ones, while four will be retuned.

John Taylor & Co is one of only two such bell founders still trading in the UK, the other being the Whitechapel foundry in London.

One of the bells being lowered from the bell tower. Picture courtesy of Patrick Andrew.

St Nicolas’s bells date back to both 1879, when the current church was built, and to 1926.

Andrew Ogden of John Taylor & Co said: “The bells at St Nicolas vary in weight, between a quarter of a ton for the smallest to just over a ton for the largest.”

Down she comes! Picture courtesy of Patrick Andrew.

At the church last week, after the bells had been lowered from the bell tower and before being loaded on to a lorry to take them to Loughborough, Mr Ogden explained that from the end of the 19th century there were significant advances in bell making. From then on bells were made with better headstocks and generally sound better and are also easier to ring.”

Some of the bells before being loaded on to a lorry to be taken to bell founders John Taylor & Co of Loughborough.

Casting of the six new bells is due to take place on Wednesday, March 25. The four that are being retuned will come back with the six new bells in May. The old bells that are being replaced will be melted down to be used in bells cast in the future for other churches or bell towers.

Mr Ogden said his firm undertakes work all over the world – so who knows where the metal from St Nicolas’s old bells will end up.

One of the bells that was recast in 1926.

Its new bells will have special inscriptions on them including the name of the current rector, Fr Andrew Norman, and to the memory of the late Yvonne Eloie who died in 2009 and left St Nicolas Church a legacy for the upkeep of its bells and bell tower.

St Nicolas Church is not the only one to have new bells at the present time. For its 850th anniversary, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is getting new bells too. Nearly all of its bells date from an 1856 renovation and experts reckon the 19th century bells toll off key. There, the new bells will join one original bell, known as Emmanuel, which remains in the south tower.

To visit John Taylor & Co’s website, click here.

To visit St Nicolas Church’s website, click here.

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