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We are the church bell ringers or campanologists, from the church of St. Mary the virgin, in the village of Aston, in Hertfordshire. Our aim is to ring the church bells for service each Sunday in the year.
In order to do this we need a band of at least a dozen and we actually struggle to do this. We practice on Thursday evenings and teach the art of campanology to new recruits from the age of twelve upwards and hopefully they will have mastered the basics after about six months.
Our tower has a ring of six bells, the heaviest weighing just over eleven cwt. They are fairly new but the metal in them is old.
The Old Bells In 1552 St. Mary's possessed '1 handbell and 3 bells in the steeple'. In 1700 Chauncey mentions an 'admirable ring of five bells'. The second, third and fifth were by Miles Graye and dated 1629. In 1840, first and fourth bells, (presumably replacements) were made by Thomas Mears of London. The sixth bell was given by Major Peter Laurence Gordon, Christmas 1889. The belfry was restored in 1893 and new and heavier clappers fitted to the old bells. At the same time the fifth bell was recast. The original bells were destroyed by a fire in the church tower in 1958. It was established that this was caused by vandals setting fire to the cassocks in the robing room at the base of the tower. Once started, the tower acted like a chimney. The main beam holding the bells collapsed and they crashed to the ground. Most of the metal from the old bells was salvaged and a new set of bells was cast and hung with new fitting and framework, the work being carried out by by Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Foundry in London, in 1959 using the original bell metal. Another interesting point is that horse manure collected from stables at Aston End about a mile from Aston is used in the manufacture of all bells made at the Whitechapel foundry. The New Bells |
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Revised: October 23, 2000. |
