"Contents"
"The Bells of Shandon"
Area Bell Towers
Bell Notes - Chiming Sticker Fun
                    - Bungee Power!!
                    - "Care Of The Chimes"
                    - New Top To The Tower
"A Note From The Belfry" Index  Page
 
 

            On January 20th 2004, Rob Millikin, chimer at St. George's' Anglican Church in Oshawa, and I met at St. Mark's Anglican Church in Niagara On The Lake to visit with Jim Smith and the St. Mark's nine-bell chime. Jim showed us around the church, a pleasant stone structure built in 1809 (only to be burned out during the War of 1812, but was rebuilt by 1828), and the 1843 tower, which is situated centrally over the main entrance. After a tight squeeze behind the organ pipes, the tower door opens into a compact chimestand room, complete with a walnut nine-bell pumphandle chimestand. The belfry is directly above and the bells are impressively loud as the notes ring down through the open hatchway. Jim plays from single sheets that each have two or three tunes expressed in numbers, which correspond to the numbered pump-handles (right out of the Meneely Instruction Book). The original six bells were installed in 1877 and were made by the original Meneely & Co. foundry in West Troy, New York. They were referred to as "an A flat chime of six bells". In 1917 the Ladies Guild decided to add three more bells as a memorial to those  from the parish who had died in WW I. These were also cast by Meneely & Co of West Troy and were installed together with a new chimestand. The transmission to the bells is through turnbuckles, wooden rods and rope over turning-blocks in the belfry. Large flat steel "hair-pin" springs in each bell serve as return springs. The Tenor (Alto?) bell is mounted in a yoke and can swing; the rest are hung dead in the wooden bell-frame. Jim told us that there is a good possibility that the chime will be refurbished in the near future, with a new bell-frame and perhaps as many as 15 bells in total, along with a new chimestand to match. Something to look forward to! Thanks for a most interesting day, Jim.

       I was most fortunate this last fall to have the opportunity to meet with some of the chimers at St. Paul's, and to play their chime several times. The Meredith Memorial Chime is a Gillett & Johnston 11-bell chime. This is the third chime or collection of bells in this tower; the first was a ring of six bells cast by C. & G. Mears (London, England) in 1851 and installed in 1853. This was rebuilt in 1901 to an ten bell G. & J. chime played from an Ellecombe frame; the frame still exists in the tower. In 1935 the bells were removed again and were included in a new eleven bell chime, complete with a steel bell-frame and a "baton" chimestand, similar to a section of a carillon clavier. Also in the tower is a large automatic music drum that played preselected tunes (now disconnected) and a functioning Gillett & Johnston tower clock. Both were installed in 1901. The clock runs three faces through mechanical linkages and rings the hours and Westminster quarters. Originally powered by hand-wound weights, it now has automatic electric winding. Three chimers  play the chime regularly for Sunday services and for weddings, funerals and other special occasions. Chimer John Allen and the chime were featured on CBC radio a few years ago at Easter time, where he gave a excellent interview while the bells played in the background. He has also traveled extensively and video-taped quite a number of chimes and carillons.
 

           Sticker Fun  In 2002 I was at the GCNA Congress in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home to a pair of very impressive carillons; and even better, (especially to a chimer) home to the Kerrytown Chime, a lovely 17 bell chime installed in 1997 at the historic Kerrytown Market. When I left, I, along with everyone else both young & old, skilled or novice, possessed a shiny new 2" sticker that proudly proclaimed that "I Played The Bells At Kerrytown". This past summer a lot of visitors from all over the world (literally) passed through the tower doors at St. James', and I couldn't resist; I borrowed the idea and had stickers designed for the "Bells of St. James" to hand out. As the rep from J.C. Graphics put it: "think of all the fun you will have, for only a dime a sticker!" How true! So now everyone who tries their hand at the chimestand gets a genuine, guaranteed official, 10 cent certificate of competency. Cool.

     Bungee Power!   In the never-ending quest to discover the absolutely perfect setup for our chimestand I had lightened the return springs for the heaviest bells to the point where it was really just the clapper weight that was pulling the transmission back after each note was struck. Since the pumphandle feel was now about the same for all the notes from the Number 4 ("A") on up, but still pretty heavy for the lowest bells, I experimented with bungee cords (shock cords) for the "1", "2", "3" and "#4" bells. Bingo! Using four foot bungee cords hose-clamped to the wooden transmission rods on the floor above the chimestand room, and hooked down to eye hooks screwed into the floor, the chimestand can now be set up so that the same effort is required for all handles from lowest to highest. Surprisingly, the repeatability, where the same note is struck rapidly in succession, has not been affected. Even better, it is now much easier to maintain control when striking the quietest of notes. The bungee cords are helping to pull the handles down; the tension of the cords is infinitely adjustable by sliding the hose clamps and cords up and down the rods, and no permanent modifications have to be made to install the cords. Try it, you'll like it.

   "Proper Care Of The Chimes"  Last summer Joe Conners, chimes historian from Troy, N.Y., took a tour through Southern Ontario, visiting and photographing towers, chimers, and chimes. There are some nice pictures from the trip on his Allchimes.com website. Of particular interest to me was a photo of a framed set of instructions for care of a Meneely & Co. chime, taken at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Cobourg. I had never seen these instructions before, so Joe kindly sent me an enlarged copy of the picture, clear enough to read. So, for all those chimers who have always wondered just what the foundry recommendations were for setting up their chime and chimestand, CLICK HERE. Some details of note: the return springs are to be only just tight enough to hold the lever up and no tighter; the levers should all go down the same distance - nine inches is their recommendation; clappers, pulleys, bearings, etc. should be oiled every three months. And don't forget that black ashphaltum paint on the chains every couple of years!

     Tower Clock Drive ChainSlowly, but surely, the new drive chain for the Westminster quarters on our E. Howard #3 chimer is coming along (see "Clock Chain Project" for more details). Ninety-five feet of chain, in one foot lengths, has been completed, all 1,400 rivets have been cut and nine completed feet of new chain was spliced into the old chain last summer for test purposes. A long, tedious, time-consuming task; hopefully the new chain will be good for another ninety-five years when it is done. Incidently, the clock's serial number turned up the other day, stamped into the hour-bell end of the cast-iron bed, where it was hidden under decades of dirt. It is either serial number "2813" or "2873"; the one digit is a little vague. A useful bit of triva, no doubt...

Top of The Tower Repairs    Back in August, scaffold was erected up the south side of the tower, and a ring of suspended scaffold encircled the top just below the parapets. Since then, Semple-Gooder, a Toronto, Ontario roofing company that specializes in repairs to historic structures, has been busy cladding the perennially troublesome brickwork above the top ring of "Roman stone" with custom fabricated panels of ornate copper. They finished January 29th, 2004, and the scaffold is now gone and life is back to normal, with the Howard tower clock ticking like a steady heart-beat, and the hours & quarters ringing out over the city. Here are a couple of photos of the work, both of the south-east finial.