The Black Bourton bell ringers are a merry band meeting usually every Thursday at 7:30pm. We are ably supported by our friends in the neighbouring towers of Clanfield and Bampton. We’re a very new tower, the original ring of five bells not having been rung properly since the Second World War. We ring for regular services and weddings and funerals. Our more recent ring was in memory of our late Queen involving the use of half-muffles.
Anyone can ring – we have ringers from 13 to 70+ – and everyone is still learning. Do use the contact form using ‘Bells’ in ‘Your Subject’ line and ask to join the WhatsApp group. Not only is bell ringing a good workout it also, purportedly, keeps Alzheimers away! Have a go at working out how a quarter peel is rung involving 1,260 changes to the order of the bells over 45 mintes.
A brief history
By 1757 the church tower had a ring of five bells including the sanctus bell. Henry I Knight of Reading cast three of them including the tenor bell in 1618–19. Henry III Bagley, who had bell-foundries at Chacombe and Witney, cast the third bell in 1743. In 1866 Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry re-cast the second bell, which had long been cracked, and added a new treble bell. The frame is oak, was made in the late Middle Ages and by 1965 required replacement. In 1966 the tenor bell of 1619 was transferred to the parish church of St John the Evangelist in Carterton. Due to the condition of the frame the bells remaining at St Mary’s were unringable until 2017, when John Taylor & Co of Loughborough restored them and added a new treble bell, increasing the ring of bells to six.
We are extremely grateful to the family of Jackie Wheeler who donated the funds to enable us to complete the restoration and cast the new treble in her honour. We also thank the village for its dedication and support in fundraising over the last few years. A huge thank you must also go to Richard Betteridge for organising the whole project, David Nixon for his tireless hard work in the tower, and all the other helpers who completed a mammoth task in such a short time. For a full breakdown of the bell project and fund raising that made it all possible go to “In our time 2017”.
Extracts republished from Wikipedia