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TOWER and BELLS
Joseph Davey designed our current tower replacing ‘a mean wooden spire’, which in 1836 cost £866.5s of which £450 was provided by the Church Building Society.
In 1837 a gilded tower clock was added to mark Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne which chimed the hours for schoolchildren and farm workers and chimes for the parish today.
Six bells ring out from the tower pealing the ‘changes’ to call us to worship on Sunday mornings, at Wednesday evening practices and for Weddings and special occasions, such as St George’s day.
The inscriptions on the bells themselves show that there were bells in Hellingly church from 1751 although they would have been hung in an earlier wooden that was replaced by the present tower in 1828.
Bells number 1 and number 2 (originally dating from 1751) and bell number 5 (dating from 1752) were recast in 1902.
Bell number 4 (originally dating from 1813) and bell number 3 (dating from 1816) were recast in 1950.
The Tenor Bell (number 6) was cast in 1828 when the ring was enhanced to six bells for the new tower. It is 3’ 4” in diameter and weighs 12 cwt.
The bells were hung in a steel frame in 1950 when numbers 3 and 4 were recast, leaving the tenor as the oldest bell still in its original state.
The combined weight of the bells is over 2 tons.
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