The Parish Church of St James
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St. James's Road, Hampton Hill, TW12 1DQ (Parish Office 020 8941 6003)
 
THE CHURCH BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS
Section Contents: Introduction | Building Projects | Images of St. James's | Inside the Church | Symbols in the Church | The Church Hall | The Church & Grounds Through the Years | The Churchyard | The Tower and Spire | The Vicarage
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Inside the Church - The Bell Tower

The Bell Tower
A church bell is a bell which is rung in a church either to tell the hour or the time for worshippers to go to church, perhaps to attend a wedding, funeral, or other service.

The practice and hobby of bell-ringing is known as campanology. The origin of the word campanology is from the Latin word campana meaning bell.

The windows in the tower do not have glass but openings or louvres in the stonework so that the sound of the bells can travel. The bells, made in 1893, are fixed so are not rung by swinging them on their axles. They are chimed manually (by hand) by one ringer pulling sideways on ropes which hang vertically side by side. The ropes operate clappers which strike the bells. A further two bells were added in 1902 at a cost of £100, thus completing a peal of six. It was planned that they were not to be heard until the eve of the Coronation of King Edward VII “unless the South African War should end before that date.” Four of the bells are also connected electrically to the clock, and automatically chime the hours and the quarters.

The ropes operate clappers
which strike the bells
Operating bells
The bell ropes
The Bell Ropes

The bells
The bells are inscribed as follows:
1. CORONATION OF KING EDWARD VII JUNE 26th 1902 FEAR GOD HONOUR THE KING (1 Peter 2 v17)
2. JUNE 26th 1902 HONOUR ALL MEN, LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD (1 Peter 2 v17)
3. GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST (Luke 2 v14)
4. ON EARTH PEACE (Luke 2 v14)
5. GOODWILL TO ALL MEN (Luke 2 v14)
6. ENTER INTO HIS GATES WITH THANKSGIVING AND INTO HIS COURTS WITH PRAISE (Psalms 100 v4)

The bells cannot be rung, that is, swung on axles, and so are chimed by using clappers. The four bells on one beam have two sets of clappers, an outer set operated by wires from the clock and an inner set operated, together with the two bells on the other beam, by ropes from the chiming board below. The separate systems save disengaging the clock for chime peals and the obvious difficulties in re-setting. The driving spindles to the four clock dial faces are operated by the vertical rod through a differential rising from the clock below.

The clock is a simple pendulum wall clock which was dedicated at a special service on December 20th, 1893 and set in motion by the former vicar, Rev. the Hon. H. Bligh.

It is driven by three falling weights pulling wires over pulleys and therefore unwinding the three spindles, provided with ratchets, which run down in just over three days.
The clock mechanism

There are three separate sections and the central section (the time-piece) drives a bevel differential gear which operates the vertical rod to a similar mechanism in the belfry above for control of the four dial faces, hour and minute hands. The other two sections activate the hour and quarter chimes, etc, by levers and wires to external clappers on the four bells used by the clock at the correct intervals.

Further Information
Contacts
Contact the Parish Office 020 8941 6003
Associated pages on this website Associated pages on this website:
Bellringing
Through the Years:
Clock and Bells (1891 October) | Clock and Bells (1893 January) | Clock and Bells (1894 January) | Our Clock (1970 October)

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