TOWCESTER : ENGLAND -NH

*Location:

   St.Lawrence Parish Church
   Chantry Lane (off Watling Street = A5)
   Towcester, Northamptonshire, England
   OS Ref. SP 695 487
   LL: N 52.13228, W 0.98763

Site locator map via
or or [StreetMapUK/titled] or [StreetMapUK/plain]
City locator maps and gazetteer page (County is wrong; other data are correct.)
Also see our own Map Use Hints.

*Player:

   (None - automatic only)

*Contact:

   The Vicarage
   Chantry Lane
   Towcester, Northants  NN12 6AB
   T: (01327)350459

*Schedule:

   Cambridge (Westminster) quarters plus
   tunes and hymns throughout the day.

*Remarks:

   Ring of 12, composed of a ring of 8
   formerly at Christ Church, Todmorden,
   plus 4 trebles; plus 6 bells formerly
   part of a ring of 8 here (4 by James
   Keene, 1626: F# 11-0-16, G#, A, B;
   plus 2 by W.Blews, 1890: D#, F#) plus 3
   old chiming bells from here (1 M&S
   1871: E# [sic] + 2 M&S 1893: A#,C#).
   Thus the 9 dead-hung bells form an
   octave plus a minor third semitone,
   with 4 overlapping notes of the ring.
   Also a manual keyboard, range unknown.

*Technical data:

   Electric-automatic chime of 21 bells
   Pitch of heaviest bell is D# in the middle octave
   Transposition is unknown
   Keyboard range:     ----  /    NONE  
   The arrangement of tones and/or semitones
     is non-standard; see Remarks above.
   The instrument was enlarged in 2000
     by the maker cited in Remarks above
   Prior history:
     In 1989, the instrument was enlarged to 12 bells
       by Taylor      
     In 1897, the instrument was begun with  8 bells
       by Taylor (and installed elsewhere)
   Year of latest technical information source is 2005

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

*Links:

A page about the bells, written from a ringer's viewpoint, describes the nine fixed bells as an "automatic carillon".  Browsers equipped with Javascript can find additional pages through the Navigation button at upper right; unfortunately, there is no alternate plain-text navigation.  It seems reasonable to presume that the James Keene Gb/F# serves as the hour bell, and that the quarters are struck on F/E#, Eb/D#, Db/C#, Ab/G#.  The pitches of the ring of 12 overlap considerably with the pitches of the 9 dead-hung bells, approximately duplicating three of the quarter bells and one other (but not the hour bell);  It is not clear whether the tune-playing system can utilize any of the non-duplicated notes from the ring; if it can, the maximum effective size would be 17 notes based on E-flat. 

Where the initial phase of this work lies in the sequence of output of the Taylor bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.
Where the second phase of this work lies in the sequence of output of the Taylor bellfoundry, in this region and in the world.
The final phase of this work being a group of recycled old bells, it is not indexed.

Ranking among all British Isles chimes by pitch (weight).
Ranking among all British Isles chimes by size (number of bells).
Ranking among all British Isles chimes by year of completion.

Index to all tower bell instruments in England.

*Status:

   This page was built from the database on 24-Nov-07
   based on textual data last updated on 2007/11/23
   and on technical data last updated on 2006/10/07

Explanations of page format and keyboard range are available.

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