For this church:

Introduction

Location

History

Archaeology

Fittings

Glass

Organ

Bells

Clock

Stonework

Monuments

War Memorial

Churchyard

References

Pictures

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Listing Description

List of Incumbents

Parish page

Worksop
Priory

Bells

Worksop Priory appears to have possessed bells since at least 1161, when Pope Alexander III confirmed the right to celebrate mass at a time of general interdiction, in a low voice with closed doors and silenced bells. The Edward VI inventory of 1552 reports five bells and one small bell and references to casting and repairing the bells and their frames are common throughout the churchwardens’ accounts from c. 1556 onwards, when the considerable sum of £15 18s 8¼d was collected for casting bells and making bell frames. Nearly £30 was spent in 1721 repairing and rehanging the bells, and a petition was presented to the churchwardens in 1759 to ‘get the six bells run over again’ although the latter refused to go ahead on this occasion, stating that ‘no satisfactory calculation or account having been produced of taking down the bells, recasting them, and hanging them again’ (Holland, 1826, 111-2). The bells originally hung in the north tower, but were recast and moved into the south tower with a new frame during the 1880s restoration. They were subsequently rehung in 1911 by Mears and Stainbank, with new bearings and gudgeons (Dawson, 1995, 257-8).

The bells in the north tower

The bells were recast by Taylors in 1953 to commemorate the Coronation, and rehung with all new fittings in a two tier cast-iron frame. Bells 1, 2, 5, 6 and 8 are in the lower H frame and the rest are in a low sided top tier.

Chiming bell

In the south tower is a single chiming bell:

There is an 8 bell carillon behind a timber screen in the north tower, with a plaque reading ‘John Warner and Sons Bellfounders to Her Majesty, Cripplegate, London’, suggesting a date during the Victorian era. Another plaque reads ‘Frederick Pembleton Engineer Glapwell Derbyshire 1979’.