Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Few people are aware of the mechanical complexity of bells and bellhanging or the methods by which they are financed produced tuned and fitted up. This introduction seeks to provide some of the background knowledge as a useful adjunct to the main text which follows. The upkeep of church bells was an important parochial duty in the nineteenth century and the provision of adequate belfry maintenance was never undertaken cheaply. Most bell transactions were costly to the bellfounder and any failure on the behalf of the authorities to settle his account on time frequently created economic hardship as was often the case with the Taylor family. Many provincial bellfounders continued to gain a precarious living by soliciting work from nearby parishes and few ventured far from their foundry premises; their area of greatest activity being curtailed by the difficulties of transporting bells over long distances on ill-made roads. Parishioners attracted to bells of improved design brought about by technological advance frequently consigned their earlier inharmonic bells to the furnace and in doing so incurred large-scale expenditure. Bell provision in the nineteenth century emphasizes an emotive conflict between the aesthetic and the utilitarian – better bells brought increased financial outlay and often necessitated a thorough re-assessment of an already strained parochial budget. Few parishes could sustain any form of additional bell expenditure without the necessity of raising the finance by taxation rate or subscription-or having the good fortune to know some practical philanthropist.