Celebrating Bells

A village church is celebrating having its bells back in action after a gap of some months.

At a special service held on Friday, Bishop Karen commissioned the recently restored bells at St Mary’s Church, Shroton. In her sermon she treated members of the congregation to a fascinating history of bells in worship, and emphasized the importance of their ringing out across the village to call people to prayer.

Present at the service was Simon Adams from John Taylor & Co of Loughborough, the nation’s sole surviving bell foundry. Our new tenor bell was recast there last February.

The village of Shroton, with a population of only 410, raised a remarkable sum of over £50,000 to enable this restoration to take place, with much appreciated assistance from several trusts and from Heritage Lottery Fund.

The work was masterminded by Tower Captain Malcolm Trowbridge, who also arranged for a CCTV camera to be installed in the bell loft, so folk below can see the bells actually in action.

Celebrations continued on Saturday, six bell ringers rang 5,040 Surprise Minor changes in 2 hours and 58 minutes.

The new tenor bell carries the inscription “My voice rings out to call you home”, reflecting the age old function of church bells, designed to remind people from all parts of the community that the Church is here to enable them to come and worship Almighty God.