 Shelford
St Peter and St Paul
Bells
According to G.A. Dawson, Shelford’s earliest surviving bell (one of
the oldest in the county) was cast by an unknown founder in the fourteenth
century. A tenor bell made about 1510 by the Mellers family of Nottingham also
survives today. In Edward VI’s reign an inventory drawn up on 3 September
1552 records that by then there were four bells in the tower and a sanctus
bell. The church also had two handbells. A new bell by was acquired in 1592
but this was exchanged in 1981, by George Oldfield, for the tenor bell of 1658
from Widmerpool in order to convert the Shelford ring from a minor to a major
scale. Other bells were added or replaced in 1702, 1754 (recast in 1919 by
Taylors of Loughborough) and 1990.
About 1702 a new timber bell frame was installed which lasted for more than
two hundred years. Unusually, it was placed diagonally in the tower. The bells
were hung anti-clockwise and rung from the ground floor. It was replaced in
1919 by a new realigned cast-iron frame and the canons on the crowns of the
bells were removed. The original base beams for the old frame are still in
the tower below the new frame. In 1990 the frame was extended for the sixth
bell.The inscriptions and dimensions of the six bells are now as follows:
| |
Dia |
Weight |
Inscription |
Notes |
| 1 |
27" |
4.1.11 |
IN MEMORY OF BERTHA PLATT HIBBERT
NEE HICKMAN 1884-1996
19(T)90
I WILL CLING TO THE OLD RUGGED CROSS |
Cast by Taylor’s of Loughborough |
| 2 |
28⅞" |
4.0.26 |
GOD SAVE HIS CHURCH SIR WIL STANHOPE 1702 GEO RAYNOR |
Cast by William Noone of Nottingham |
| 3 |
31⅞" |
5.1.13 |
AVE MARIA GRA PLENA DNS TECUM |
Dates from C14 : unknown founder |
| 4 |
36" |
7.3.20 |
GOD SAVE HIS CHURCH 1658 |
Cast by George Oldfield of Nottingham |
| 5 |
38" |
10.0.13 |
JOHN COWPER HENRY ELLIS CHURCHWARDENS 1754 THOS HEDDERLY
FOUNDER
| RECAST 1919 |
| EDWARD ST JOHN MORSE |
|
VICAR |
| SAMUEL ELLIS |
|
CHURCHWARDENS |
| WILLIAM LAMIN |
|
|
|
| 6 F# |
41¼" |
12.0.26 |
CELORUM XTE PLACEAT TIBI REX SONUS ISTE |
Cast by the Mellors family of Nottingham c1510 |
Additional information from Christine and Brian Mills.
| 
