#Richmondbells

[richmondbellsproject]

26.08.17 - GeorgeFest

We are running drop-in activities for all ages as part of GeorgeFest. Come and compose your own tune on our 8 new bells to be played on the new chiming apparatus! Or explore a guided scenographic journey. Develop a poem from learning about the social and cultural history of our bells, or add to the large collaborative community poem. Move, flow and dance with the rhythms and patterns of Scientific (Method) ringing.

Workshops run 11.30 - 2.00 at St Mary’s Church, Richmond.

Tea and Cake at 2.00 

Tower tours 2.00 - 4.00.

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15.03.17 - Bell Removal Day 3

Richmond Bells Project is in full swing! Four of the old bells have been lowered out of the tower, and by the end of this week they will be on their way to Taylor’s Bell Foundry in Loughborough where the five historic bells will be cleaned up and prepared to go into the permanent exhibition. I’m designing elements of the exhibition, so I’m really looking forward to seeing the bells up close soon!

Photos by Guy Carpenter

Andrew Ogden of Taylor’s Bell Foundry.

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Moorside Primary School Year 3/4 improvised soundscape, live composed by Imogen. 15 students explored with Ele and Bob the atmosphere of the bell chamber through images, and translated that into creating soundscapes. Imogen live-directed the group to play Wii remotes loaded with distorted field recordings of the old bells .

[richmondbellsproject]

04.03.17 - Community day, open ringing & final peal attempt on historic bells

The last peal of 5000 or more changes, in minor, involved the six oldest bells in the tower, ranging in age from 140 years to over 500 years old. Unfortunately we didn’t get the peal, but it was still a great celebration day with ringers past and present, and parishioners turning up for ringing, photographs and cake!

The ringers past and present:

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Moorside Primary School - Year 5′s improvisation ‘Haunted Ducks’. Improvised by 15 students using Wii remotes, a dancemat and a keyboard with distorted field recordings of the old bells. The improvisation was created through exploration of the atmosphere’s of a specific part of the bell chamber, discussed looking at images. Practitioners - Bob Birch and Ele Slade.

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Moorside Primary school - Collaborative poem ‘Slider’

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Moorside Workshop - July

We had a fantastic last day of schools workshops at Moorside in Ripon. The students were great fun and excited to be exploring bells! (It could have helped that it was the end of term...) We ran short workshops with Years 3,4, and 5, and ended the day in the school assembly to share some of the work that was created.

Some students created collaborative poems through word association and exploring the social and cultural history of bells.

Others developed soundscapes inspired by the materials and atmospheres of the bell tower. 

[richmondbellsproject]

Methodist Primary Workshops - June

We were resident in the Methodist Primary School in Richmond for a week to run many different workshops with every member of the school, and some members of Arkengarthdale School. It was a very busy and very exciting week. 

Students on Stewart’s workshops explored collaborative poetry, concrete poetry and experience led writing about bells and their social and cultural histories.

Rachel’s workshops used movement and dance to learn about Method Ringing, explore creative responses to bell ringing terminology, and create large group movement improvisations.

Bob’s groups explored soundscapes and bell ringing using Wii remotes, and their sharing of work was a large group improvised soundscape using Wii remotes, Dancemats, and a keyboard which all had original and distorted field recordings of the old bells.

Ele’s workshops engaged with the materials and textures of the bells and their buildings. Some groups created large collaborative texture art, some explored images of the bell chamber through performance, creating group friezes and movement inspired by the shapes, textures and atmospheres of the bell chamber. 

With the older age groups the practitioners worked together to explore subjects from cross-disciplinary processes. Ele & Stewart’s groups created 3D ‘landscape poetry’ developed through a process of analysing images of specific places and objects in the bell tower (very texture-led photos provided Blake Byles), and exploring their visual and textural properties, and their imagined atmospheres. The students then developed responses to these through creative word play, making concrete poetry, and finally they developed their piece into a design for a 3D, life sized performance area.

The end of the week saw a large exhibition in the school hall of much of the work created throughout the week, from all different age groups. 

Around 200 parents and carers visited the exhibition, watched a video of the week’s activities, filmed and edited by Blake Byles, and ate fantastic scones by the school chef, and attended the ‘Stand Up for Jo Cox’ event held by the school. 

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C of E Year 3′s improvised soundscape track inspired by the St Mary’s bells and their buildings. Bob and Ele led the group to compose through improvisation. Each section was explored with a certain instrument (vibra-tones, drums, clapping and stamping, a keyboard and a Dancemat with distorted bell field recordings, and Wii remotes with field recordings of the old bells on them). And each section was inspired by a different part of journeying from the church up the tower stairs, into the bell chamber and finally onto the roof. We discussed images from each area, exploring their atmospheres, and together we created sound based responses to the images to create the soundscape.

[richmondbellsproject]

C of E Primary School Workshops - June

Our first set of schools workshops went well and were enjoyable both for us and the students, and hopefully the staff too! We were in the school for three days, and ran a sharing of work at the end of the last day with all who were engaged in the workshops that day.

Some students created collaborative poems or concrete poetry with Stewart.

Others explored movement of bells and thought about size, weight and balance with Rachel.

And others, like Year 3, explored sound and design together, creating an atmospheric soundscape inspired by the materials, texture and atmosphere of bells and their buildings.

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The finished flower display - beautiful! Thank you and well done to Glenys for a wonderful design and her team for hard work! 

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09.06.17 - bellringers garden & last pieces into the tower

Whilst Glenys Rogers and team created a bellringers garden to commemorate ringers of the past at St Marys, the very last pieces of our frame were being hoisted up into the tower so it was a busy day at the church!

In between jobs!

Master dry stone-waller Graham built the wall - an improvement on his ringing! :) 

The last pieces going into the tower!

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May 2017 - Bells Are Installed!

Work in the tower to install the bells has taken the whole of May and part of June so far. It’s a long and careful job to get everything in place just right. Guy Carpenter took some more great photos on one day of the installation, and our filmmaker Blake Byles was there for a couple of days to capture some footage and try another timelapse - he made one of the bells coming out which features on a video we will post soon.

The original headstock of our old Tenor bell, dated 1863 - it is always on display in the ringing chamber, and it will go back on display when we are finished with the works:

Jennifer Patrick and Liz Foster:

Andrew Ogden, Taylor’s bell hanger, gets one of the pieces of bell frame onto the hoist:

Chris Curry helping to hoist the number 2 bell:

Andrew Ogden and Andrew Slade:

The number 5 bell being hoisted:

Bell 5 in position:

[richmondbellsproject]

An Empty Tower

With all the bells gone and the old frame dismantled the tower seems pretty empty, but still a beautifully textured and atmospheric space. Photographer Guy Carpenter was shown round by our Project Manager Elizabeth Foster and Andrew Slade - both long serving bell ringers in Richmond.

The steel girders you can see in the photos are the new bearer beams ready to hold the weight of the new bell frame. Above the steel are the temporary beams put in place by Taylors in order to remove the bells, and above that you can still clearly see a very old beam which would have been used to hoist bells into the tower, in centuries gone by, possibly as long ago as Medieval times. 

The Ringing Chamber is ready to be redecorated once the work in the Bell Chamber is finished:

The now exposed hatchway that we think may have originally provided access to the roof above the Nave, and may have been blocked up during the Victorian Restoration of the church when the height of the Nave roof was raised. The large circular trap door from the Ringing Chamber through which the bells have moved up and down from the church:

Our new bell wheels, currently being temporarily stored in the church, were beautifully made by hand by Taylors carpenters:

One of our new clappers!

A photo of the new frame built in Taylor’s Bell Foundry to test out the bells and structure before it travels to Richmond to be installed:

See Guy’s article at http://www.richmondshiretoday.co.uk/photos-empty-belfry-st-marys-chuch-richmond/

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25.04.17 - Dedication service for new bells

Bishop James Bell came to dedicate the new bells before they went up into the tower:

The church was packed with a huge range of people from Richmond and beyond, all of whom came specifically to be part of this historic occasion. 

We had representatives from the Town and District Councils, the Civic Society, the Fellmongers, and Mercers Grocers and Haberdashers, Richmondshire Museum, John Taylors Bell Foundry; ringers from nearby towers including Stokesley, Grinton, and Catterick; Gerry Parsons and Peter McCoy, trustees of the Yorkshire Association Bell Repair Fund; doners to the project including the Green Howards who donated the 7th bell; and people involved with our community workshops like Deputy Headteacher of Richmond Methodist Primary School, Susan Gardener, and pupils from the Church of England Primary School with their Deputy Headteacher Lucy Hodges.

Richmond Mayor, Councillor Russell Lord, and Bishop James Bell:

Many thanks for the lovely photos by Guy Carpenter. See Guy’s article at http://www.richmondshiretoday.co.uk/photos-st-marys-new-bells-blessed-bishop-bell/

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Old Bells Polished Up

Alistair Lunn’s photos of the now polished up old bells being taken off the lorry: 

The inscription on the original 3rd bell cast in 1739 can now clearly be seen after being cleaned up by Taylors:

In the below photo: being hoisted is the oldest bell we had, the 6th, cast in ca.1500, with the old 4th bell underneath it, which was cast in 1697.

It’s interesting to see how the inscription styes differ over the years, from simple and plain in 1500, to beautifully fine decoration of the 1697 bell which has intricate trailing leaves drawing together bell shapes and the founders shield.