THE bells at a Castle Bromwich church are set to fall silent as a major restoration project gets underway later this month.
Having raised the £100,000 needed to refurbish the six current bells and install two new ones alongside them, the team at St Mary and St Margaret's Church are ready for the long-awaiting renovation to begin.
Work will start next weekend on loosening the current fixtures in the belfry, with a bell hanger from the famous Taylor's Bell Foundry scheduled to work on the ring from February 28 to March 10.
The Loughborough-based company - which has a history stretching back centuries - will be installing a new cast iron frame to replace the ageing timbers presently in place.
Because some parts of the current frame are very old, it makes it harder to ring the bells.
Fear that the installation would eventually fail prompted the bell ringing team to launch their fundraising project several years ago.
Despite the sum of money required being more than three times what they had originally estimated, they reached the £100,000 total last year and have achieved their aim of having the work done in time to celebrate the 300th anniversary of a set of bells being installed at the church by Sir John Bridgeman.
Bill Dargue, a member of the bellringing team, has said the installation will be completed in August. Once the work is finished a service will be held to welcome the new bells.
No comments:
Post a Comment