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All Saints, Brightwalton, Berks
Newbury branch of the ODG
All Saints, Brightwalton
© KMC 12 Jul 2002
Dedication: All Saints, Brightwalton

Service Ringing: Sun 9.30(4)

Practice night: By arrangement

The Bells:

Access to ringing chamber: Ground floor around the font

The following information comes from the book by David Vince.

In the Spring of 2000 Whites of Appleton restored the bell gear as follows:

  • the clappers were removed, cleaned, painted and rebushed
  • all ground pulleys were replaced with new units fitted with "sealed for life" ball-bearings
  • the wheels of the 5th and tenor were repaired and they were rehung on new self-aligning ball-bearings using the existing headstocks
  • new ceiling bosses were fitted in some of the bell pits to align the ropes better
A ring of 6, tenor 8-1-21, diameter 38", tuned to G
Bell Weight
cwt-qr-lb
Strike
Note
Date
cast
Founder Foundry
location
Inscription
treble 3-2-2 E 1925 Mears & Stainbank Whitechapel MEARS & STAINBANK, FOUNDERS, LONDON, 1925 [M]
2 3-2-14 D 1922 Mears & Stainbank Whitechapel [Fig 25] CAST A.D. 1600. [Fig 25] RE-CAST A.D. 1922 [Fig 25] M. & S. LONDON. [M]
3 3-3-0 C 1400# Wokingham foundry Wokingham [F2] [C] [F4] Ave Maria
4 4-3-0# B 1627 Ellis Knight I Reading PRAYES THE LORD X627
5 6-1-0# A 1816 James Wells Aldbourne JAMES WELLS ALDBOURN WILTS FECIT 1816 [B] [B] [B] [B] [B]
Tenor 8-1-21 G 1922 Mears & Stainbank Whitechapel HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD . A.D. 1922.
MEARS & STAINBANK. FOUNDERS, LONDON [M]

Notes:

  1. [M] is the Whitechapel Founder’s mark
  2. The coat of arms [Fig 25]repeated 4 times on bell 2 are probably those of the Braybrooke family, who lived in the Manor House during the 16th and 17th centuries.
  3. [C] on bell 3 is the impression of a coin
  4. On bell 5 [B] is the impression of a bell, probably that shown in D7.
  5. All bells retain their canons
  6. The 3 oldest have been quarter turned
  7. The 3rd was cast at the mediæval foundry in Wokingham. The inscription is cast in beautiful old lettering with crowns above the initial letters there is the lion's head motif:
inscription
Inscription copied from F.Sharpe The Church Bells of Berkshire.Page 55.

The Bells have an interesting history. Four of them were brought from the old Saxon church and now form the middle four of the ring of six. The former treble bore the inscription: “THE RAYNE OF THE QVENE 42 E R E B C W 1600”. The tenor bell was given to the parish in 1922 by the Reverend Henry Howard and his family in memory of two sons who fell in World War I.

Architecture:

Points of interest in church:

Norman tub font moved from the old Saxon church which is shown in an oil painting near the door.

Stained glass window in Baptistry.

Two pillars made of unusual blue-black stone.

Built in 1863, All Saints replaces a small Saxon church which stood 200 yards to the North East, shown in an oil painting on the right of the entrance.

The local Lord of the Manor, Philip Wroughton of Woolley Park, donated the land and paid most of the £4,500 it cost to build the new church which was designed by G.E.Street, then living in Wantage. It is built of hammer-dressed Bisley stone in the Gothic Revival Style.

Inside, to the right, are two columns made of an unusual smooth blue-black rock which feels colder to the touch than the stone stylised capitals above them. This is 'blue lias', a type of rock found in the cliffs near Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast.

Baptistery window Baptistery window and rope guides.
©KMC 30 Jun 04
Norman font
Bell shaped 'spider' for holding the ropes and the Norman font in the centre of ringing circle which was moved from the old church.
©KMC 12 Jul 02

The window was designed by Michael Halliday, made and fitted by Lawes and Barraud in 1868. It commemorates Florence Georgina Wroughton who died in infancy in 1859 and shows ‘Our Lord’s Blessing on the children’.

In 1922 the Rev Henry Howard and his family donated the a bell (now the tenor) to the parish in memory of two sons killed in action during the 1914 - 1918 War. A memorial brass to the memory of Major Bernard Howard and Lieutenant H C Mowbray Howard is fixed to the south wall of the nave.

References:

  • Brightwalton Church a booklet written by June Osment available in the church in 2004
  • A History of the Church bells of the united benefice of Brightwalton with Catmore, Chaddleworth, Leckhamsptead and Fawley by David Vince, Leckhampstead. pub. by Brightwalton Parish Council some time before 2002

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