OSHAWA : CANADA - ON

   Carswell Memorial Chimes

*Location:

   Memorial Tower
   St.George's Memorial Anglican Church
   Centre Street S (Regional Road 2A)
     at Bagot Street
   Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
   LL: N 43.89543, W 78.86453

Site locator map or
Also see our own Map Use Hints.

*Player:

   Susan Wright, Chime Master
   - and -
   Rob Milliken, Chimer & Historian
   E: millikin@sympatico.ca
   - and -
   others in St.George's Chimer's Guild

*Contact:

   St.George's Church
   39 Athol Street West
   Oshawa, ON  L1H 1J5
   T: (905)723-7875   F: (905)723-7038
   E: pfeheley@rogers.com  [Rector]

*Schedule:

   Sunday mornings, and for some weddings;
   Mon-Fri for the noon hour;
   for town's annual Santa Claus Parade
   (before and after) and numerous other
   special occasions.

*Remarks:

   Enormous playing drum (disconnected),
   made by J.W.Benson, London, 1923, has
   8 fixed tunes (one is "grand changes").
   Added semitones are sharp 4th, flat
   7th, flat 9th, flat 10th.  Original
   keyboard (still displayed in tower)
   was large-scale baton type; replacement
   (by Verdin) is standard baton type,
   with dropped keys for all three
   missing semitones plus two trebles.

*Technical data:

   Traditional chime (baton keyboard) of 15 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is B  in the bass octave
   Transposition is down 1 semitone(s)
   Keyboard range:     C F   /    NONE  
   There are four added semitones
   There is no practice console
   The present keyboard was installed in 1988
     by the maker cited in Remarks above
   Prior history:
     In 1924, the complete instrument was installed
       with bells made by Whitechapel 
   Year of latest technical information source is 2003

Additional information on the technical history of this instrument can be found in a database printout.

*Links:

The church Website has a picture of the tower; the History page mentions the "carillon" and its American donor.  There is also an extensive page about the chime (though some of the referenced pictures are omitted), as well as a chimers' newsletter.

Where this work lies in the sequence of output of the Whitechapel bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.

Ranking among all North American chimes by size (number of bells).

Index to all tower bell instruments in ON.

*Status:

   This page was built from the database on  6-Apr-08
   based on textual data last updated on 2008/04/02
   and on technical data last updated on 2004/12/16

Explanations of page format and keyboard range are available.

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