The Parish Church of
Saint Mary and All Saints, Whalley
Whalley Bells: 2024 Centenary Project
The bell sound problem
The Whalley bells are very loud at ground level and this has the potential to cause disturbance, especially to our neighbours in the dwellings on Church Lane. This restricts bell ringing to set times for events such as church services, weddings, funerals, practice nights and occasional ringing meetings. Other ringing such as visiting ringers from other towers around the country and teaching new bell ringers at Whalley is therefore severely curtailed. The inability to fit bell handling training into the schedules of potential recruits is currently limiting the potential of the bellringing team and this is of particular concern.
The bells are located high up in the tower in a two level steel frame, where the bells on the upper level are at the same height as the tower louvred window openings as can be seen in the image.
The angled stone weather louvres then deflect the bell sound directly towards the adjacent dwellings on Church Lane. There are four louvred openings in the bell tower such that the bell sound is loud in all areas around the tower.
The sketch image shows a close up of the outside of the tower wall, showing a louvred window opening. The bells can be clearly seen just inside and there is currently no means to restrict their sound.
A practical solution is required such that the sound from the bells can be reduced to allow training, practising, visiting ringers and other non-essential ringing. However the bells still need to ring out for all church, national and Whalley village events where bells are required, just as they have in the past, for many hundreds of years.
The priority for the 2024 centenary project is to refurbish the bells such that they can continue to ring out for the next 100 years. However, if sufficient funds have been raised, it is proposed to fit fully automatic sound control behind the tower louvres as part of this project to be installed during 2024.
The sound control can then be closed for practice and non-essential ringing, and opened to allow the bells to still ring out for all required events.
The fitting of sound control will provide the potential for the bells at Whalley to be used freely and as such to be available as a Centre of Excellence to promote English church bell ringing within the local area and beyond.
Learn more or click the image above for detail on a proposed sound control scheme.