We are celebrating and giving thanks! Tonight six bells will be rung at Kingswear Church for the first time since the tower was built in the 1100s. In 1939 plans to install another three bells to join the existing three (two of which were made by an Exeter foundry in the 16th Century) were scuppered by the outbreak of WWII...but 85 years later....after a busy week by the Black Cat Welder team of Carl and Nick installing the three new bells, a test ring will take place from 6.30-pm onwards! Local BBC news Spotlight show hopes to be there too for alive bulletin at the end of tonight's programme. We'll also be celebrating and giving thanks with some ringing before our 10.30am Sunday Harvest service this weekend so come and enjoy traditional harvest hymns along with flower and produce displays - donations of tinned food or cash will support a local foodbank. Seasonal refreshments after the service!
The bells fundraising campaign was run by Friends of St Thomas (FRoST) and although there has possibly been a church on the site of the existing church since Saxon times, the church we see today, dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury, dates back to the 1100s. Although the church was substantially rebuilt in 1847, the bell
tower, which houses the new bells, is part of the original construction and predates by 200 years any other tower at the mouth of the river Dart.
FRoST, a non-denominational registered Kingswear Charity, supported by the Parochial Church Council and Kingswear Parish Council, launched a fund-raising campaign in August 2022 for
Kingswear’s Platinum Jubilee Project, which was the purchase of a new, fourth bell, for St Thomas Church to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The concept was that the new bell would replace the bell that was sold to purchase a clock, which had to be large enough to be seen from Dartmouth!” The clock was fitted on the tower in tribute to the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, so was very appropriate this new bell would be to celebrate another Royal Jubilee
Earlier this year, FRoST announced that it had raised enough money for not one, but a further three bells - and the order was placed. The new bells were cast at the historic Taylors Bell Foundry in Loughborough this summer. The new bells not only commemorate the Platinum Jubilee of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, celebrated in 2022 named The Platinum Jubilee Bell but also the new Kingswear-Kittery Coronation Bell celebrates the Coronation of HM King Charles III in 2023. The third new bell is the Thomas Lewis Memorial Peace Bell and is dedicated to the memory of Kingswear WW2 evacuee TW Lewis and his wartime parents Harry & Dorothy Battershall.
The new bells were delivered to Kingswear by steam train last Sunday 15th September 2024 and were welcomed by a peal of bellringing from Dartmouth’s St Saviour's Church as the train pulled into Kingswear Station. Installation began immediately and will be completed this weekend.
The new bells will be rung for the first time this evening (20th September) after 6.30pm, and hopefully will be heard for many centuries to come in Kingswear and across the river Dart to Dartmouth and beyond.
If you'd like to join a bellringing training group for the village, please contact Stephen Pearson on 07771 857140.
The church will also have the bells rung (this time by Dartmouth Bellringers) from around 6.15pm on Thursday evening 26th September, just before the 7pm fundraising concert by the fabulous Cox Trio for the £6k needed to repair three windows at the church. Tickets £8 cash on the door, free wine and refreshments in the interval.
Written by fabulous fundraising coordinator Chris Ryan, Kingswear, 19th September 2024