Rope guide finished

The ringing room is pretty much finished now, apart from painting the modified rope guide.

It produces quite a good circle and where possible, makes use of existing holes and gaps between the beams. It looks anticlockwise from below!

Above this, we are now pretty much ready for the return of headstocks.

This is the 7th bell sitting where we left it a while ago sitting on a temporary steel grillage. The other bells are sitting on the bell frame.

Ringing from the ringing chamber

The treble bell can now be rung from the ringing chamber!

The rope is drawn across a little bit in the room above the ringing chamber with pulleys top and bottom to get it to drop in the desired position in the rope circle.

It handles really well, but it will require a 'flapper board' to stop the rope wobbling since it is not falling vertically.

This is the view looking up.

Nearly a two bell tower

The second bell is now resting in its pit!

It still needs bed plates manufacturing for the bearings to sit on. We already have all the other parts required, the pulley, wheel, slider and stay, and these will be fitted once the bearings are in situ.

A one bell tower!

Strensham is now a one bell tower!

Apart from a stay and slider and a rope to the ringing room, this bell is ready.

Originally from Kettering, this is the first time since 2004 that this bell has been rung full circle. It is also the first time a bell has been heard from Strensham tower since April 2017.

A swinging bell

We've got one bell swinging at last!

The concreting of the beam was finished a couple of weeks ago, and the shuttering came off tonight. After a bed plate was fixed to the frame, the headstock was bolted to the ex Kettering treble and the bell put in its pit.

It's a bit tight, but we always knew it would fit.

Here it is swinging!

The bell was cast by Taylors in 1979 and now weighs 3-1-11 after tuning.

Shuttering

The current focus is on preparing for the concreting in of the steelwork for the new treble.

The shuttering has been cut and fixed in place complete with a slot where the concrete can be inserted.

The shuttering now needs sealing with expanding foam and the hard work of mixing and hauling up buckets of concrete can begin.

Treble Pulley

With the treble headstock and wheel still in position, we took the chance to put the pulley in position.

Because the rope is going to be drawn sideways in the next room down, it is important that the rope doesn't move from side to side when the rope passes the double pulleys, otherwise it might cause the it to jerk. The way we chose to do this is to mount the pulleys at an angle - a trick that Warners did at nearby Bredon.

We used a plumb line to check it was in the correct position, and that the sally will be roughly at the same height when the bell is up and down.