Hell’s Heaven’s Bells
WHEN the bells at Dubbo’s Holy Trinity Church tolled in unison with a world-wide celebration of the bicentenary of the Ellacombe-chimes, there were plenty of locals on hand to witness the historic moment.
Titled Bells, Smells and an Organ Recital, Holy Trinity’s bells rang out at noon on June 26 as part of a global wave of bell-ringing that began in New Zealand and followed the sun westwards around the world to finish 19 hours later in Vancouver, Canada.
The event linked more than 130 churches representing several different Christian denominations in nine different countries to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the invention of the Ellacombe Chimes.
Holy Trinity parish priest Brett Watterson said it was a wonderful day with internationally-acclaimed organist Michael Deasey playing the newly purchased organ at the church.
Michael Deasey is best known as the longest-serving organist and choirmaster at Sydney’s St Andrew’s Cathedral. He also spent ten years as organist and director of music at Bathurst’s All Saints’ Cathedral and has held similar positions in both the UK and Canada.
In 2005 Michael was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to Church music, and ten years later was made a Fellow of the Guild of Church Musicians. In 2019 he was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal School of Church Musicians.
His recital on Sunday afternoon included Concerto in D-minor (i. Allegro, ii. Adagio, iii. Allegro) by John Stanley (1712-1786); Prelude on the Welsh Hymn Tune Rhosymedre by R Vaughan Williams (1872-1958); Toccata in F-major by J S Bach (1685-1750) and Priére by Malcolm Archer (b.1952).
Lew Hitchick from Bathurst’s Anglican News put together a history of the bell-ringing apparatus and it makes for interesting reading.
The Ellacombe Chime System was invented in England by the parish priest at Bitton, near Bristol, the Reverend Henry Thomas Ellacombe, to allow the ringing of church bells by a single operator rather than a team of bell ringers. It was widely used in churches in Britain and throughout the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Unlike the traditional method of bell ringing, where the bells are rotated through 360 degrees (full circle ringing) to sound them and one person is needed for each bell, the bells are kept static (or “hung dead”) and a hammer is struck against the inside of the bell. Each hammer is connected by a rope to a fixed frame in the bell-ringing room. When in use, the ropes are taut and pulling one of the ropes towards the player will strike the hammer against the bell.
To enable full circle ringing to also take place in the same tower, the Ellacombe Chimes’ ropes must be slackened, to allow the hammers to drop away to enable the bells to swing freely.
Thomas Ellacombe created the system as an alternative to using his local ringers so that he did not have to tolerate the behaviour he saw as unruly. The Reverend Ellacombe
was the editor of the bell ringing column of a church periodical called Church Bells and was often critical of the behaviour of bell ringers. A particular target was “prize ringing”, where teams from different churches competed for a prize for the best ringing, usually accompanied by a social event.
An example was in 1875, when he weighed in with a diatribe against a ringing competition at Slapton in Devon. He wrote, “We blame the vicar and churchwardens for allowing the bells to be so prostituted for the benefits of a publican’s pocket.”
In more recent times on this side of the world, Ray Tickle has pieced together the timeline for the Holy Trinity bells and bell-tower, which were erected and installed as a memorial to those from the parish who served in the Great War 1914-1918.
The tower and bells were hallowed by George Merrick Long,
Bishop of Bathurst on December 17, 1922.
The peal consists of eight tubular bells suspended on a timber frame; originally the bells were struck by pulling down on ropes; however in time the ropes were replaced with steel wire connected to a crude keyboard, this enabled the bells to be rung by just one person standing on a platform about eight metres below the frame.
“In the mid-80s I was asked to meet a man from England and show him the bells at Holy Trinity. This man had a registry of church and public bells in Australia and wanted to inspect our peal of bells,” Mr Tickle said.
“At that time the only bell which was rung was a middle bell rung
to alert people that a church service was about to commence. The man from England climbed the 160-year-old ladder to the upper platform on which the bells were mounted, taking out a small wooden mallet he struck each bell and announced that these bells were not cast in Wollongong, indicating that they were good bells worth preserving.”
Mr Tickle said at that time the bell ringing apparatus was in a poor state, cracked or missing hardwood strikers, all the ropes except one were broken, bolts were missing, and all the wires stretched or missing. Added to this the bell-tower had been home to a flock of pigeons for many years.
“As I liked the sound of the bells, I set about repairing them.
This took about two years as I had to turn the hardwood strikers, replace and splice all the ropes, find bolts which had a thread the same as the mechanism and replace the wires with stainless wire,” he said.
“For me this was a labour of love, working on something so old. I admired the resourcefulness of the men who built the frame from reused Oregon timber braced with discarded steel sulky rims.
“The effort was worth it as now every Sunday morning the bells peal out over our city to announce that worship is about to commence.”
At least 100 people tuned up for the bells, barbecue and organ music, a great day being had by all.