This month’s featured tower comes from the heart of the Dorchester Branch, the idyllically-sited Church of St Mary the Virgin in Charminster. Located amongst stone cottages and nestled by the quaint River Cerne a few miles north of the county town of Dorchester, the church, with its fine Perpendicular Gothic tower (a relative rarity in Dorset), houses a musical ring of ten bells.
One of only six rings of ten in Dorset, Charminster has the distinction, along with Kingston, Purbeck, of being the only village in the county to possess a ring of more than eight bells, the others being in the towns. The history of the bells, for a village church, is unusually complex, thus making an interesting subject for the ‘Tower of the Month’ feature. We know from surviving records in the church accounts that the tower of the church was built, or rebuilt, thanks to a gift by Sir Thomas Trenchard (1460-1550) in the 16th century. With its stone-panelled louvres and crocketed pinnacles, it is one of the finest examples of the late Gothic design in the county.
So how did a sleepy Dorset village end up with an excellent modern ten? Well, as with most higher-numbered rings, there were originally much fewer bells. The 1552 Church Goods inventory, which was carried out on the orders of Edward VI, recorded four bells at Charminster. Given the relatively short period between the tower’s completion and the survey, it seems likely that these four bells were installed within it from the outset. There are no records that I can find in the many history books on Dorset’s bells that show who the founders were; not even the late Christopher Dalton, widely acknowledged to be an authority on the county’s bells, attempts his ‘Bells and Belfries of Dorset’ to name them. Perhaps, like many aspects of medieval history, their names are lost forever.
However, we do know from analysis conducted by the late Henry Walters, from a bell that still survives at Charminster today, that in all likelihood, one of these four bells was recast by William Purdue I between 1580 and 1590, based on the Elizabethan lettering on the inscription, and similar bells at Toller Porcorum. At a similar time, a new bell frame was provided in the tower, according to one source, in 1583, and it would make logical sense that the recasting of this bell was carried out alongside it.
Most of the evidence for what the tower contained before the 20th century comes from, ironically enough, a 20th-century survey by the Rev J. J. Raven in 1904 into Dorset’s bells. Helpfully, apart from a recasting in 1866, none of the bells had been altered since 1663, which painted an excellent picture of the early history of the bells in Charminster. The treble was inscribed ‘TP 1663’, which is the work of Thomas Purdue of Closworth on the Dorset-Somerset border; similar bells with similar inscriptions can be found across the western half of Dorset. The third and fourth were both inscribed as ‘AD 1631’ and the tenor ‘TP 1661’. The fourth was recast by the Loughborough foundry in 1866, for which the church paid £38 7s, plus £2 12s 10d to the Great Western Railway for carriage and £60 13s to one Edwin Miles for the rehanging of the remainder. The third and the former fourth were most likely, castings by Roger Purdue, who also cast bells locally in that year for Cerne Abbas, Piddletrenthide and Frome Vauchurch, all of which, Dalton suggests, were cast at Maiden Newton.
That just leaves the issue of the second bell, which Raven helpfully describes only as “a meaningless jumble of letters and stamps”. For many years, the founder of this bell could not be identified, however, Walters believed in 1939 that this was the bell with the Elizabethan lettering, something that Dalton seems to agree with, which then suggests that from 1663 to 1867, the tower contained a complete Purdue ring of five; with two bells each by Thomas (treble 1663 and tenor 1661) and Roger (third and fourth, both 1631), and one bell by William (second, c1580-1590).
The rehanging by Miles in 1867 cannot have proven very worthwhile, because just 28 years later, in 1895, a report by George H. Phillott of Cheltenham condemns the frame for full circle ringing, using adjectives such as ‘old’, ‘weak’, and ‘rickety’. Phillott advocated for the bells to be refitted and rehung in a new frame, which was duly carried out by Thomas Blackbourn of Salisbury in 1896. Blackbourn’s frame, of iron trusses mounted on wooden beams, was for six bells, allowing for a future augmentation. The bells were rehung within it on new fittings, most likely including new wheels, wooden headstocks, and plain bearings. The vacant pit in the frame was finally filled 38 years later, in 1933, when Mears and Stainbank cast a new treble bell. It was provided with new modern fittings, including iron headstock and ball bearings, which for several decades to come, would be the only example in the tower of a bell with a metal headstock.
As early as 1933, as reported in the Ringing World (see 18th August 1933, page 522), the tenor was noted to be cracked when plans for the addition of a treble were published, and that it was to be preserved, rather than recast. The bell was not recast or retired in 1933, but continued in use, perhaps from an early attempt at welding. It would not be until 1952 when recasting would finally occur, again in the hands of Mears and Stainbank, who also rehung the new bell on a fresh wooden headstock, and all the bells, apart from the treble, on ball bearings. Any plans to preserve the bell, which had been cast by Purdue in 1661, appeared to have been lost, except the reproduction of Purdue’s inscription on the new bell.
In 1961, the bells underwent an augmentation and partial restoration by John Taylor & Co. Two new trebles were cast to make Dorset’s nineteenth ring of eight, the sixth (fourth of the old six), cast by Roger Purdue in 1631, was recast, and, at the request of the tower captain, Ernest Amey, rehung with new Elm stocks and plate gudgeons for all the bells except the two by Mears, with renewal of Blackbourn’s wheels. The request in the 1960s for wooden headstocks and plate gudgeons seems something of a backward step in an age where metal headstocks had been standard for over sixty years. To accommodate the new bells, Blackbourn’s frame was extended on the same level to provide two additional pits in the Taylor ‘low-side’ design.
Taylor’s returned in 1981 with two new trebles to make a ring of ten. More bells meant another frame extension was needed, but as the tower was not wide enough to accommodate another two on the same level as the original, the extension was installed in the form of a second tier, above the other bells. The 1961 trebles of the eight were moved up to the new tier, with the trebles of the ten taking their place in the 1961 metal extension. The ring as of 1981 thus consisted of four Taylor trebles (2x 1981, 2x 1961), a Mears fifth (1933), a Taylor eight and ninth (1961 and 1867), a Mears tenor (1952), and two older Purdue bells in the middle as the sixth (1663) and seventh (c1580-1590).
Further work took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1987, work began on a project to retire the seventh, the oldest bell in the tower, as its medieval shape (tall and narrow) made it difficult to ring accurately amongst the other bells. A stock bell, cast by Taylor’s in that same year and originally intended to be the sixth in a new heavy ring of twelve for Leighton Buzzard, was heavily retuned down two semitones to become the new seventh at Charminster but was not installed for another four years.
In 1991, the four heaviest bells were lowered from the tower and returned to Loughborough. The ninth had its canons removed, the three largest bells were all retuned, leading to a particularly good improvement to the ninth, and all four back bells rehung on new metal headstocks. The old seventh, having been replaced by the ‘new’ bell, was rehung in the tower with its existing fittings, except for the wheel which went onto its replacement, as a service bell. The 1991 ring of ten then thus consisted of only one old bell, the 1663 Purdue sixth, sandwiched between seven Taylor bells and two Mears bells. Dalton is generally positive about the bells, except for the sixth, which he described as ‘weak’.
Finally, in 2008, a major project to improve the ring was undertaken by Hayward Mills Associates and Taylor’s, Eayre and Smith. This involved retiring the Purdue sixth and, curiously, the 1961 Taylor eighth, which were both replaced, but not recast, by new bells. The Purdue ex-sixth was kept by the church as an artefact, but the ex-eighth became the tenor of a ring of eight at Menangle in New South Wales, Australia. The fittings were overhauled, the trebles and the ninth retuned, and new metal stocks were fitted to the remaining bells. The result is a delightful, modern ten, with true-harmonic tuning throughout, that are easy to ring, and easy on the ear.
Jack Pease
Postscript
An interesting feature, worth looking out for if you ever ring in Charmister is the Charminster Devil, a carving of a face about 3 metres up inside the pier of the arch. Its style is different from the high craftsmanship of the perpendicular masons and might best be described as a primitive, suggesting it may have been made by a less tutored hand. The origins and purpose of the feature are unknown but the carving is likely as old as the rebuilding of the tower in the first half of the 16th century but may be considerably older.
AW
