BELFRY STEWARDSHIP COMMITTEE

We are fortunate within the Guild’s area to have only five rings of four or more bells that are formally considered unringable (the two rings of five in Winchester, the five at Stratfield Saye, and the four at Pamber Priory - to which must now be added the recently “condemned” ring of six at Chawton). We are also fortunate that, looking across the two Dioceses, our parish authorities still keep the maintenance of their bells as a priority. This results in a steady flow of restoration and repair activity year by year, as recorded in our annual review (printed elsewhere in this report). Indeed while this past year seems to have been a fairly busy one for the bell trade in our area, the queue of work pending or under consideration shows that the flow is not likely to diminish for the foreseeable future.

We must however set this apparently healthy picture against the backdrop of the Church of England faced with an increasing crisis of too few clergy, too little finance and too many churches for the needs of its congregations. This is a challenge that will quickly feed down to affect ringers. The prospect of more church redundancy and/or fewer funds to be used for what will be seen as the “luxury” of bell restoration and repair means that we must not be lulled into a false sense of complacency by the current bright outlook. As ringers we will need to do more and more of the stewardship of our bell stock ourselves, relying less on our parishes in future, and we will need to be seen, and be active in Worship and in the wider aspects of parish life and ministry if we, and our ringing, are to retain credibility as valued assets of the church.

The Belfry Stewardship Committee continues to seek to provide a positive influence into this situation by providing a visible contribution to the challenges faced by parishes in maintaining their bells, and by endeavouring to make advice on Belfry Maintenance available when requested.

In the present “busy” restoration period, the committee’s advice and assistance have been called upon on several occasions during 2004. Advice has been provided to St Mary’s, Crawley in support of the planned rehanging of the five bells; to All Saints, Fawley with regard to the overhaul and rehanging of their six; to St Boniface, Chandler’s Ford, in the church’s centenary year, where the single service bell is unable to be sounded at present due to wear and tear to the original fittings; and to St John’s, Winchester where a planned major repair to the church roof and closure of the building placed the un-hung mediaeval Sanctus Bell at risk.

The committee has also contributed to the ongoing dialogue about the four bells at Pamber Priory, where a certain amount of misunderstanding and misinformation has, at times, tended to confuse a fairly straightforward situation in which the BSC has always been reactive to local developments rather than precipitated them.

Advice on the merits of proposed works was provided to the Bell Restoration Fund Trustees regarding two schemes applying for grant-aid during 2004.

The BSC has met formally twice during the year (in March and November) when discussion covered various bell schemes and related matters across the Guild. Principal focus has however remained the Guild-wide Bell Stock Survey. The three committee-members co-opted specifically for this activity (Andrew Banks, John Davey and Ray Walsh) are leading in taking this work forward. With their support progress is now being made on the development of a computerised database to store and facilitate more flexible access and analysis of the survey data. It is hoped that a demonstration of this progress can be made to the March Guild Executive Committee meeting. However, ultimately the eventual success of the whole project depends on the completion and availability of the returns from all those towers who have yet to provide data.

Finally, once again I (and the Guild), are indebted to BSC committee colleagues for their continued efforts in support of Belfry Stewardship within the Guild in the past months.

Phil Watts