The Earliest Bells

Not all churches can boast a peal of bells. In the Diocese of Birmingham bells are to be found in the towers of ancient churches such as Yardley, Kings Norton and Northfield, while there are bells in some Victorian churches: Boldmere, Selly Oak and Erdington, for instance. The city’s newest bell tower is at the Georgian church of St Paul’s in the Jewellery Quarter where a ring of 10 was installed in 2005.

Of the 188 churches in Birmingham Diocese, 47 have bells. This is a high proportion and Birmingham has a good reputation as a bellringing city.

(Find out more at the website of the St Martin’s Guild of Church Bell Ringers – http://www.stmartinsguild.org/towers/.)

Bells have been used by Christians from about 400 AD when St Paulinus initiated their use to notify local people that a church service was about to start. The first bells were handbells. As the use of bells began to spread throughout Christendom, churches vied with their neighbours to have the largest bell. As bells grew larger, they were hung outside the building and eventually placed in bellcotes.

The first bell in England may have been at Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire which is known to have had one in 680 AD. St Dunstan (c909 – 988) is the patron saint of bellringers. As a young monk he trained as a metal worker later turning his hand to making bells and when he became Archbishop of Canterbury he had bells hung in all the churches in his diocese.

Castle Bromwich church dates from the 11th century. Covering the area of the present chancel, some of the Norman stonework of the old chapel is still hidden behind the wooden panelling near the altar.

It cannot be known for certain, but there is every likelihood that a single bell hung in a small turret at the east end of the church.

Medieval Bells at Castle Bromwich

The small Norman chapel served Castle Bromwich for some 300 years before the church was enlarged in about 1450 with the addition of a large timber-framed nave at the west end of the original chapel.

It is not certain how many bells were hung there, but evidence in the roof at the west end survives showing the location of the medieval belfry. Certainly in 1716 there were three bells there.

Until the 17th century bells were hung on a simple lever and just swung from side to side. If there was more than a single bell, it was almost impossible to control them to ring in any sort of a pattern. This is the style of ringing still heard in continental Europe where church bells are simply rung ad lib.

However, during the 17th century bellringers began to experiment with different ways of hanging bells to give them greater control. Eventually bells were fixed to a wheel enabling ringers to rotate them through 360 degrees. They could now speed up or slow down, start and stop ringing at will; patterns of ringing began to be developed. The system of hanging and ringing bells that evolved at that time is still in use today.

New Bells

Another 300 years passed, until in 1717 Sir John Bridgeman II of Castle Bromwich Hall had the three old bells melted and recast to make a ring of five. The cost was £12 16s. 0d. The bell-founder was Joseph Smith of Edgbaston who was also responsible for other local bells; one of his 18th-century bells is still rung at Sheldon church. It is thought that a new tower must have been built at the west end of the church to house the bells, though no evidence of it now survives.

Sir John had his name inscribed on the largest bell; the second largest bore the name of John Brooke, the priest from Aston in charge of Castle Bromwich; other bells had written on them the names of wealthy local landowners, family names found in Castle Bromwich over many years: Chattock, Sadler, Thornton.

Bad Behaviour

During the 18th century bellringing became a fashionable pursuit for wealthy young gentlemen and was largely unrelated to the religious worship of the time. To make ringing more interesting a range of patterns of ringing were devised, known as methods, some of them very complicated. Priests generally did not approve of this, as they considered it a leisure activity and unsuitable for a Sunday. Church services were usually announced by the tolling of a single bell.

In country areas, the situation was worse. Historically, the chancel of the church with the altar was the responsibility of the parish priest; the nave where the congregation stood or sat belonged to the people of the parish. It doubled up as a community hall. The bell tower was seen as the people’s part of the church. It was fairly normal for a barrel of beer to be kept in the bell ringing chamber and for the ringers to smoke and gamble. Some vicars locked the ringers out only to have the door broken open on practice nights. What the behaviour was like at Castle Bromwich is anyone’s guess.

A New Church and Plans for a Sixth Bell

Many churches in the 18th century began to increase the number of bells to enable them to ring the increasing number of methods being devised. Again there was a certain rivalry between local parishes as to which church tower could boast the greater number of bells.

In 1725 Sir John Bridgeman had a new bell tower built, the tower that stands there today. The bells of 1717 were hung in the new tower. Sir John allowed space for a sixth bell which was not put in place at the time. A new bell may have been low on his list of priorities, at this time he was rebuilding Castle Bromwich Hall on a grander scale and also planned to rebuild the old timber church, both very costly enterprises.

Spring Clean

During the first half of the 19th century there were moves to reform and revitalise the Church of England and return it to its catholic roots, a process largely promoted by the Cambridge Camden Society. From 1839 the Society began to encourage a national ‘spring clean’ of churches to return them to a perceived golden age set somewhere in the Middle Ages. This included bell towers and the bellringers. Bellringing should not be seen as an activity separate from the church, but should serve the religious needs of the church. Incumbents were encouraged to take control of the belltower.

The parish priest should appoint a captain of bellringers to be responsible for the band and its conduct. The captain was empowered to fine members of his team for poor attendance, inappropriate behaviour and even for poor ringing. By the end of the century, a new generation of ringers had transformed bellringing and made it a respectable part of church life. Although it continued as an enjoyable hobby, its main focus was on serving the religious life of the church.

In 1896 Taylor’s bell foundry in Loughborough perfected the scientific tuning of bells. Different parts of a bell resonate at different frequencies and the trick is to tune them so that they make a musical chord. Up until this discovery the various bell founders tended to stick to their preferred shapes and would improve the sound of the bell by chipping small pieces of metal from a circle at different places inside the bell. In recent years the quality of Joseph Smith’s surviving bells has been analysed and they have been found to be very musically accurate castings.

Other founders followed Taylor’s lead and during the 19th century increasing numbers of towers had their bells recast to improve the sound quality of their peals. Greater attention was paid to the way that bells were hung and bells began to be easier to handle. This in turn encouraged more ringers, more ringing and more complex methods being rung.

Birmingham, being a famous bellringing city, saw many towers having their bells recast at this time, many of them by Taylor’s.

A Sixth Bell Is Cast

The Bridgemans, Lords Bradford had not lived at Castle Bromwich since the mid-18th century when they moved to Weston Park. Castle Bromwich Hall had been let to wealthy tenants in the meantime. However, in 1870 George Bridgeman (Viscount Newport), the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Bradford, moved back to Castle Bromwich with his new wife, Lady Ida née Lumley, the daughter of Lord Scarborough. They both lived here until their deaths respectively in 1915 and1936.

Lady Ida was a close friend of Princess Mary of Teck who married the Duke of York, the future King George V. Lord Bradford had a new 6th bell made to celebrate their wedding in 1893. The bell founder was Charles Carr of Smethwick. Unfortunately the old frame could not take the new bell and Carr constructed a new oak frame, which is still in place. The third bell was now no longer in tune with the new ring and a new bell was cast to take its place.

Fortunately Carr was able to sell Joseph Smith old No.3 bell to the railway works at Derby (now Derby College) as a clock bell where it is still hangs chiming the hours. Luckily, the railway line through Castle Bromwich goes directly to Derby and, in all likelihood, the bell travelled this route.

World War 2

With the outbreak of war in 1939, all church bells were silenced. They were to be rung only in the event of a German invasion. Traditionally bells are rung in reverse in times of national danger. Fortunately, this never happened. However, when Victory in Europe was declared on 8 May 1945, few church bells were rung in celebration. With the bells remaining silent for six years and many bellringers away at war, there were very few people left who knew how to ring them.

Castle Bromwich Bells Recast in 1952

In 1952 Castle Bromwich’s old bells were melted down and recast to make a new ring of six. A fund had been started by Lucy Williams in memory of her bellringing husband John who died at the age of 54. Born in 1872, he was the local blacksmith who lived and worked on Castle Bromwich Green next to the Coach & Horses Inn. He was from a family of Castle Bromwich blacksmiths dating back to the 18th century.

Bell founders, Gillett & Johnston of Croydon cast a new ring from the metal of the old, and the new bells were first officially rung on 22 November 1952. Lucy lived 23 years longer than her husband, dying at the age of 78 in 1949, so she was never to hear the bells cast in his memory. Lucy and John Williams are buried together in Castle Bromwich graveyard.

A New Millennium

In the year 2000, grants from the National Lottery helped to restore 150 bell towers across the UK. 5000 new bellringers learned the craft in order to ring on New Year’s Day 2000 when almost every tower rang out the old and rang in the new. Castle Bromwich was there with the rest!

Bell Restoration Project

The Castle Bromwich bellringers have now set up a trust raising funds to restore, improve and maintain the church bells. The aim is to get the work done by 2017 to celebrate the tercentenary of Sir John Bridgeman’s new bells of 1717.

The Gillett & Johnson bells of 1952 are a fine ring. However, the bell frame installed by Charles Carr in 1893 and the fittings of 1952 are unsatisfactory. The ringers want to restore the installation to good order and to hang two new bells to complete the ring of eight intended 60 years ago.

The Earl of Bradford and The Viscount Hereford are patrons of the project. The former is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Sir John Bridgeman II and Viscount Hereford is the descendant of Sir Walter Devereux who built the medieval wooden church.

You can hear the bells of Castle Bromwich rung in the English tradition and style every Sunday, on holy days, high days and for weddings and funerals. The bells have been rung for the funerals of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, for the Queen’s Jubilees, for the Millennium, for the London Olympic Games and in commemoration of the First World War centenary.

For more, see the Castle Bromwich ringers’ website – http://cbbells.webs.com/