THE BELLS

St Teilo's Church, Llantilio Pertholey, has a ring of six bells, the heaviest (tenor) weighing just over 12 hundredweight (610 kg) and the lightest (treble) weighing a little over 4 hundredweight (203 kg).

The oldest bell is the tenor, cast in about 1520 and so dates from the reign of Henry VIII in the days when his famous warship the Mary Rose sailed the seas!

Prior to 1995, however, this was the tenor of a ring of only four bells. The present fourth and fifth bells, cast in 1792, formed the middle two of the original four. The treble bell of those four was cast in 1665 but is today used as the service bell. All four bells were cast at relatively local foundries (Bristol, Monmouth, Gloucester).

The original four bells were re-hung on new fittings in the old frame, by James Barwell of Birmingham around 1910, and unfortunately the canons (the fittings at the top of the bell by which it is hung) were also removed, so we are not able to see the bells complete as they were originally cast. Interestingly, in 2008 an old clapper was unearthed in the grounds of the former 'Old Mitre' public house next to St Teilo's Church (Fig.1) and is of the type used in medieval bells, so could well have come from one of these old bells when they were re-hung.

Attempts were made to repair the frame in about 1930, but the bells were becoming difficult to ring. In October 1992, Phase 1 of a project was launched to raise funds to install a new bell frame and renovate the bells. The Fund Raising Committee held its first meeting in January 1993, and organised numerous events such as a sponsored walk, barbeque, jumble sales, flower festival and talks. A grant was also received from the Bell Restoration Fund of the Llandaff & Monmouth Diocesan Association of Church Bell Ringers [L&MDACBR].

In January 1994, the four bells were lowered through the hatchway to the ground floor to be taken to the John Taylor Foundry in Loughborough for renovation. To help defray costs, the bell ringers themselves supplied much of the labour involved in removing the old frame and bells.

Once at Loughborough, the old treble bell of 1665 was found to be too thin to be able to be re-tuned, so a replacement bell was cast. The old timber frame was replaced with a cast-iron 6-bell frame on steel beams which was installed in March 1994, together with the three re-tuned bells from the original ring, and the new treble. The sound wood from the old frame was used to construct the altar which is today in use in the north aisle.

Phase 2 of the project followed soon after, with more fund-raising events and a further grant from the L&MDACBR. A further two bells were cast by Taylor's on 3rd March 1995, the casting being watched by about 15 parishioners for whom a special visit to the foundry had been organised. Later that month the new bells were installed at St Teilo's, forming  the present Treble and No.2 bells. Meanwhile a decision had been made to save the original treble bell rather than dispose of it for scrap, and it was brought back to St Teilo's at the same time and re-hung as a chiming service bell.

Details of the bells are as follows: 

FIGURE CAPTIONS

Figure 1.

Left. The old clapper unearthed in 2008 from a garden adjacent to the Church and which is now kept in the ringing chamber. The top part of the shaft would have originally been 'sandwiched' between two wooden 'clamps' along the top of which was a fitting by which the clapper would have been suspended inside the crown of the bell allowing the clapper to swing. The 'T'-shaped top of the metal shaft would have slotted into holes inside the wooden clamps to keep it in position.

Right. Similar, early 18th Century clappers with their wooden sections still intact. From the church at Cwmdu, Powys.