First of all, apologies for the lack of news on the website over the last couple of months.* The augmentation is progressing, but progress has been frustratingly slow.

September seems such a long time ago when we excitedly received the bells at the church – at the time, it felt like real progress and it wouldn’t be many more weeks before we could be ringing.

The frame repairs were completed and all bells located in the correct place in the tower by the end of October. A couple of weeks later and the easy part of getting the existing three to a ringable state was completed. The ringers elected to return to the three bells at Ab Kettleby on practice nights, as the extended displacement was beginning to take its toll! So Wednesday night practices resumed in St James’ on 18th November 2015.

Because of the frame issues, the augmentation process has been ongoing much longer than anyone had anticipated. Which in turn means that various long-standing personal commitments from the volunteers have also prevented much progress in recent weeks.

That said, we are tantalisingly close to ringing all six bells. Some hard work today has seen two of the remaining three bells be fitted out and ready to ring! The second was up and running by about 17:00, and the tenor was completed at about 19:30.

So we had a bit of a delayed start to our Wednesday practice night while the tenor’s rope was adjusted to the correct length. (Not a problem – we had planned a more social night tonight, with tea/coffee and cakes galore to fill the void!!) We finally got going with some simple rounds on 5 bells – such a different sound and feel to the with the new tenor taking the peal to a major key!

The treble bell still needs a bit of adjustment to its frame position; then the pulley box, slider and stay need fitting, before the rope can be put in place and we can have our full peal of six. It doesn’t feel like there is much left to do. It was planned and hoped that we would be ringing them by Christmas this year, but disappointingly, some last minute hitches look likely to prevent the final few tasks from being carried out.

Good things come to those who wait..!

(* for more details, see BellBoard)

Saturday saw another step towards the completion of our augmentation project. Our volunteers spent a full day in the tower with the intention of getting the bells up into their pits. Unfortunately, a bit of a hiccup in the repair of the broken frame side meant that it wasn’t ready for the weekend, so the amount of work that could be done was limited.

First, attention was given to the new treble pit. A new section of beam was to be installed first. A section of wall was removed to allow the beam to be anchored into the brickwork. As we did so, it revealed the end of a beam running the full width of the tower. During the clean down and restoration of the frame, we could not find any evidence of paint or preservation of the steel work, so considered that there probably hadn’t been any! However, the reveal of the beautifully preserved beam end, which has been protected from the weather embedded in the wall for 65 years, showed that the beams at least were painted up with black paint.

The newly painted red section of beam contrasts with the preserved black section inside the wall.

The new beam section was put in place and propped up with with wood and the brand new frame side (which was hoisted up in June!) could now finally be put in place. Once secured, the new treble was lifted in to its new home and bolted in place. The hole in the wall was then filled with concrete to complete the installation of the beam. There are still some braces to be installed around the new treble area to reinforce the the frame and control the additional forces that will be exerted when the bells are rung full circle.

Next, attention was turned to the new heavy tenor. The tenor’s pit was already in place, so the operation was much more straightforward. Additional acrow props were put in place underneath the lifting beam to reduce the span of the load. The tenor slowly made its way up to the bell-chamber and a second chain block helped to manoeuvre it to its new home at the back of the tower.

There are still two bells in the intermediate chamber waiting to be hoisted up, but it’s exciting to see that two thirds of the bells are now more or less in their final positions!

Last Tuesday saw 5 bells being delivered to St James’. The two old bells that were taken away for tuning and repair were joined by their new siblings; two brand new trebles and the tenor bell which has been relocated from Cornwall.

On Tuesday afternoon, an 18T lorry, courtesy of sponsor Brands2hands, arrived at the John Taylor Bell Foundry in Loughborough and loaded our five bells, along with the new wheels, stays, sliders, clappers, pulley boxes and other various fitments. The bells were put onto pallets to make transportation easier and were taken back to Brands2hands’ warehouse in Old Dalby for onward transport to Ab Kettleby by smaller vehicles during the evening.

The first bells and fittings arrived in Church Lane just before 17:30 to a patiently waiting crowd of local ringers. The first three bells to arrive were the smallest bells – the two new trebles, and the existing old treble – numbers 1, 2 and 3 of the new peal. They were unloaded from the van – the tail-lift and pallet trucks making short work of the process – and transferred to the church.

A ramp had been constructed to allow the step into the church to be navigated with ease.

Before we knew it, the first three bells were in the aisle ready to be winched up.

First up was the new number 2.

Shortly followed by the number 3.

And then the brand new treble.

These bells only made it as far as the intermediate chamber, as the frame for them still needs to be constructed or reconstructed!

The two larger bells were fetched from Old Dalby in separate vehicles; the heavy tenor arriving on a trailer. The number 4 (old number 2) was taken off the van with the tail-lift, but we needed a special piece of equipment to take the new tenor from the trailer. Fortunately, help was on hand from a local farmer and his telescopic forklift – light work was made of moving the tenor from the trailer and a good way onto the path before pallet trucks took it the rest of the way to the church.

The number 4 was hoisted all the way up to the second floor and placed straight into its pit.

Then it was time for the tenor – we had already established that it wouldn’t be possible for the tenor to fit through the doorway into the base of the tower, so it needed to be lifted over the screen instead. Various combinations of winch were used in various different places, along with various people pulling on strops before eventually, with the help of a “chain pull”, the tenor made its gentle descent on the other side of the screen, before being slowly hoisted up to the intermediate chamber.

With that it was nearly 10pm, so we called it a day and made a weary beeline for the Sugar Loaf for some well deserved refreshment.

This weekend saw the last bits of the platform that was resting on the bell-frame dismantled. The platform will be restored at a higher level, thus allowing our new bells to be hung beneath it. Here’s a view of the situation in the bell chamber at the moment. The frame has been partially dismantled, and the treble is waiting to be lowered once the problem beam underneath has been removed.

A quick update on augmentation progress – our existing bells have now been dismantled, ready to be removed for the work that’s needed on them, and our new bells are completed and ready at the foundry doors to be shipped out to us!

However, the frame isn’t quite ready for them yet. A section needs to be removed to allow the bells to taken out and put back again. Unfortunately, the bells are just a bit too big to fit through the gap without partially dismantling the frame. Which is where a significant problem has been encountered – 50 years of weather in the spire has taken its toll on the bell frame, and the piece we need to remove has borne the brunt of the leaks over the years. The rust means that a section of RSJ is proving incredibly difficult to take out, and thus far has thwarted attempts to remove the existing treble.