Getting the Woolpit tenor out

16 February to 7 April 2013


One of the beams the bells will be hung from is lifted up the outside of the tower in February.


In March, Stephen, Alan and David are investigating how the vaulted ceiling is put together. The small trap-door in the floor of the ringing chamber is not large enough for the tenor, so part of the ceiling will be taken apart


Alan through the hole in the ringing chamber floor. The area of floor cut out of the carpet will eventually be removed to make a hole big enough for the tenor.


Stephen looks up from the scaffolding tower


Investigations complete, the scaffolding tower is taken apart


Lucy watches the workers from above.


The roof boss normally fills the hole from below, and the boards on the right normally are the floor of the ringing chamber.

6 April 2013


Earlier work has seen the fittings removed from the tenor and it lifted onto the frame ready to be moved. But first we have to create an exit route...


The easiest part - the ceiling of the ringing chamber and floor of the clock chamber just lifts out.


The floor of the ringing chamber is more complicated


In the bell chamber, we must move two bells out of the way and remove part of the frame before we can lift the trap door. Lucy is at work removing the wheel from a bell


The top half of a wheel


The one on the right came off; the one on the left needed the hack-saw


Hack-sawing a nut off a bolt to which it had rusted solid since 1968


Ben removing the planking around the inner trapdoor


Trying to remove the ridiculous number of nails that had been put in when the trap was last used in 1968 - ridiculous because the frame couldn't move even if there were no nails at all.


The wheels have now been removed from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. We just need to lift the 2nd and 3rd and move them out of the way, then remove part of the frame in order to access the top trapdoor below the bells.


Looking up the spire


For stubborn nuts we used a hack-saw and chisel on the first two, but the angle-grinder came out for the rest


Moving one of the blocks used to lift the bells


The trap in the ringing chamber is finally ready to lift out


Except that there is one more nail...


A view down into the church


Finally the frame is removed, revealing the vaulted ceiling which needs to be removed for the bell to fit through.


First a bit of vacuuming to remove the dust of several decades plus the detritus from removing all those nails


Looking down to the lowest trap-door with the afternoon sunlight coming through the stained glass window


Moving one of the bells onto the frame out of the way


Almost there


The two bells out of the way, with another in the frame between them.


The bells have gone and we've lifted the frame out too.


The frame has been lifted out and can be seen on the left, and the top-most trap door lifted, with a view down into the clock chamber. The tenor is ready for its journey down tomorrow.

7 April 2013


Next afternoon, the tenor is moved across above the hole in the floor


Meanwhile the trolley is in place at the bottom


The tenor has left the bell chamber and is passing down through the clock chamber, with its trap-door still closed


Through the clock chamber's trap door, the view is down to the ringing chamber, where the hole has been opened up again - you can just see part of a hinge on the bottom trap-door. There is a total of just under half an inch clearance (less than a quarter of an inch each side)


The bell appears through the vaulted ceiling


and continues its descent


The view from the bell chamber. The four trap-doors are not aligned, so the bell had to be gently pushed to one side or another to fit through


You can see how far the final trap-door is off-line


Nearly down


The bottom trap is now open


Pushing the bell through the bottom trap


The view from the top as the bell comes to rest at the bottom


The bell in place at the bottom


Safely down


David points out the crack


The crack is highlighted by the dye


The team


The bell is off to Newmarket for a few weeks

 

 

Back Up Next

Unless otherwise stated, all images copyright (c) Stephen and Lucy Dawson