St Faith's has the luxury of a (not so) fine peal of eight bells. They are, unlike many in churches, ringable and we ring them for second and fourth Sundays and we practice every Thursday. Generally the village likes to hear them ringing, or so we are told.Their history goes back for over two hundred years in 1800 when John Briant of Hertford was contracted to cast a single bell of nine and a quarter hundredweight which later became the seventh bell of the eight.Three more bells were cast in 1824 by W & J Taylor in Loughborough and these became the current three, four and five.In 1826 the tenor or eighth bell was cast and was set up as the bell for the church clock.In 1907 the treble and second were added by Mears and Stainbank and finally in 1936 they cast the sixth, making a total of eight bells altogether.The eight bells, having been cast at various times and by various bellfounders are a bit of a mixed lot. They aren't really in tune with each other and some are not even in tune with themselves (tuning of bells is an extremely difficult job). Furthermore, having been added to the wooden bellframe at different times, the frame has been altered and chunks cut out and added. If nothing is done then within a few years they will become unringable and another of England's towers will have become silent.What really needs doing is to recast four of the bells, tune the rest and rehang them in a new steel frame. Total cost, around £130,000. It sounds like a lots of money but to keep the bells ringing for the next 200 years it isn't a huge amount.
After a short interregnum we have a rector again. Yvonne Mullins has come to us, via a rural Oxfordshire benefice of ten parishes where she was curate. A benefice of only five parishes should be a rest cure.Yvonne will be making herself known as she settles into the benefice and finishes unpacking in the rectory in Mursley.A video of her licensing service is available here.
As a church we get through a lot of candles. There are the candles we use during normal Sunday services, and the special candles we use during special seasons. Especially at Christmas we get through roughly 400 tealights when we fill the church with candle light. What happens to the remains of all these candles?For many years we've been collecting the leftover wax and melting it down and we've now started making our own candles which we are selling in aid of church funds. Come into church and look at the display. Feel free to take candles and leave a donation in the box just inside the door. There are many sizes, all the way up from floating tea-light sized ones to giant pillar candles. Some are scented with essential oils. Come and look.
