I did manage to pop along to church on Monday night for a brief look see of the bells out of the tower before they were taken to the foundry for attention.

There were a few other ringers there including our youngest recruit who had been there since (primary) school kicking out time and had been having a whale of a time having a hands-on go at the heavy engineering, and actually got to help lower the bells from the tower.

Now they are out, they look tiny to me. I have seen them a few times as I have done some basic maintenance on them in situ, including botch repairing to shrouding and fitting muffles. In their frame, when they are hard to access and you have to do a lot of clambering to get to them, they seemed much more imposing than when they sat, mute and clapperless, on sheets on the church floor.

The 10cwt tenor (and the bells have handled so badly for so long it is always surprising to see the tenor is only 10cwt!) is barely waist high when removed from its person-sized wheel.

As the bells were being worked on, the wheels showed just what poor condition they were in, almost collapsing as they were removed. It really was probably only months before one of them broke whilst being used.

A few other things: these bells are surprisingly cracked around the rims.

We were there during choir practice, and the choir was getting going on Christmas carols, which made the evening a little surreal.

And the musicians were also keen to hear the bells when they were down. Whacking the 8 bells with a big spanner in sequence leaves you in no doubt at all just how out of tune they are with each other!