Grimsby Minster - Bells

Bells

The Minster has 10 bells hung for normal full-circle ringing. They weigh a total of 4.3 tonnes, the tenor (the largest bell) weighing 18.25cwt and having a diameter of 4 feet. They are tuned to the key of E flat. They date from 1830 when three of them were cast by William Dobson, and several bellfounders have cast the rest since then, including John Taylor and Co and John Warner and Sons, the newest bells (the two lightest) being cast in 1962 by Mears and Stainbank. Frank Kennington (born 26 December 1933) was taught to ring at the Minster in 1945 by his father and became Tower Captain in 1955. He gave up the post in 2012 after 57 years because the stairs leading to the ringing room were getting too much for him. The ringers are Matthew Jeffery (new captain), Lorraine Jeffery, Jane Willerton, Vic Pope, Bethany Chapman, Carla Westfield, Jordan Westfield and Fern Robinson.

Read more about this topic:  Grimsby Minster

Famous quotes containing the word bells:

    But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
    Opens its eight bells out, skulls’ mouths which will not tire
    To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
    Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.
    Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)

    These days of disinheritance, we feast
    On human heads. True, birds rebuild
    Old nests and there is blue in the woods.
    The church bells clap one night in the week.
    But that’s all done. It is what used to be....
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    You owe me ten shillings,
    Say the bells of St. Helen’s.
    When will you pay me?
    Say the bells of Old Bailey.
    When I grow rich,
    Say the bells of Shoreditch.
    Pray when will that be?
    Say the bells of Stepney.
    I am sure I don’t know,
    Says the great bell of Bow.
    —Unknown. The Bells of London (l. 13–22)