TWO latest bronze bells for All Saints’, Landbeach, might be christened on Sunday 28 April, when it’s hoped that the ring of six might be heard across the Fens.
The bells have been solid on the Royal Eijsbouts Bell Foundry, within the Netherlands. One commemorates the King’s Coronation last 12 months (News, 12 May 2023), and the opposite is in appreciation of the Landbeach community. A 3rd bell, the tenor, has had its headstock restored, and the remaining bells — one in all which dates back to medieval times — have all been cleaned.
The work has cost within the region of £70,000, raised by the ringers themselves, the Friends of All Saints’, Landbeach, charitable trusts, individuals, and anonymous donors.
All Saints’ is one in all the smallest parishes within the diocese of Ely, but it surely is home to the Beach Bellringers — recruited and trained by the tower captain, Barbara Le Gallez — and a community of what a longstanding member of the congregation, Angela Brown, described as “stars and stalwarts”. The church is a warm hub within the winter, hosts weekly free lunches, and operates a Community Cupboard for food distribution. Its first Christmas-tree festival last 12 months drew 250 visitors. It was “living the gospel here”, Mrs Brown said.
Film crews were present to record the arrival of the brand new bells on 18 March. Mrs Brown said that it had been “a heart-stopping moment” when the bells were being handled. “One false move, and it might have been back to the Netherlands.” She described the micro-movements employed by the Nicholson Engineering team as each “tender and adept”. There were more heart-stopping moments the following day, because the bells were lifted over the rood screen and guided through the aperture into the tower.
The bells will first be heard in a concert on 27 April in a bit for choir and bells by a neighborhood composer, Philip Mead, sung by the choir of St Augustine’s, Cambridge.
The Acting Bishop of Ely, Dr Dagmar Winter, who’s the Bishop of Huntingdon, will formally dedicate the bells the following day. The Beach Bellringers, who’re proud to be a part of Cambridgeshire’s strong bell-ringing tradition, hope to encourage latest ringers from Waterbeach New Town to hitch in what they consider to be each a sport and an art.
