Lound church has three bells. It is possible, by dint of standing on one leg, for one person to ring all three – one or two people in the village have done this since childhood, so have the knack! However, these days, a new group of enthusiastic ringers, formed after the ‘Ring for the King’ event, chime one each.
Known details are captured in the updated Dove record, at
https://dove.cccbr.org.uk/tower/25174
Weights: a bell expert could probably estimate these once we have the diameters, to be obtained by measuring the diameter of each bell.
Frame: it might be possible to fill in year and maker if a bell expert were to recognise the bell fittings and frame; there are two or three firms who made frames in this style; so far nothing has been found in the church records for the suggested dates 1890-1910. Many of our records were were sent to the County Archive for safekeeping but were then destroyed in the Norwich Castle fire in the 1990s We are currently making enquiries of the Diocese of Norwich, which also has records.
The bells are listed as a full-wheel swing-chime (rather than a full-circle ring) on the basis that:
The ground pulleys under the bells are set at an angle of 45 degrees to the wheel rather than aligned with the wheel
There is currently no way to achieve a straight rope drop from the pulley to the ringing chamber; although it is possible to draw the ropes to some degree, the bells could not be rung fully with the ropes drawn across to one side as is currently the case; also, it would not be safe to ring the bells from the intermediate chamber because there is a very long rope drop; plus the floor immediately under the bells has a gap where the ladder goes up and so the noise would be deafening.
There is a clapper indent in each bell at the point where the clapper now strikes and very little on the opposite side. It is likely, though not yet confirmd, that there are also much bigger indents on both sides of the bell at ninety degrees to the current direction of swing. This will confirm, firstly that the bells were “quarter-turned” when hung in the new metal frame but also that the bells used to be swung high enough for the clapper to hit both sides of the bell – something that hasn’t happened since the re-hang circa 1900.
