A church in the Tamar Valley needs the public’s help to raise the final amount needed to see its church bells returned to their rightful place.

For centuries church bells have rung out to mark personal, local and national events so it was a sad day at St Sampson’s in South Hill when the bells went silent.

But hopefully not for much longer as the local community plea for the public’s help to get them ringing again.

On behalf of the fundraising team, Miranda Lawrance, Owen and Judith Ayers said: “We need to raise £25,000, to bring the bells back and they will chime out across the parish once again.

“So what is the story of our parish bells? As church bells go, ours are old, and they are listed as ‘worthy of preservation’.

“The four oldest bells were cast in 1698 by Exeter bellfounders Pennington and Stadler. The fifth and largest bell, the tenor, cast by Pannell and son, of Cullompton.

“In 1684 Sampson Manaton died and in his will left £10 to the churchwardens of South Hill to be paid to them within one month after they “new cast those three bells and make them fine”. Sampson’s instruction suggests that the old bells were to be melted down and made into new ones. If this was so, our existing bells retain something of the originals which were there in the 1500s.

In November 2023, with the help of a great team of volunteers, the bells were brought down, and sent to Loughborough on the back of a flatbed truck
In November 2023, with the help of a great team of volunteers, the bells were brought down. and sent to Loughborough on the back of a flatbed truck. ( )

“Each bell has an inscription recording the names of the churchwardens/priest at the time and/or those who contributed towards the cost of the bells

“The late Charles Harding of Brookfield, South Hill, organist at St Sampson’s, used to chime one of the bells until about 2010, when it became unsafe. They have probably not been rung for a number of decades. This suggestion is given weight by a wonderful 1958 article in a bellringing journal, ‘The Ringing World’. It tells of an expedition to St Sampson’s by six bellringers from Truro and London who persuaded the then churchwardens, Mr Brock and Mr Brent, to allow them access to the previously forbidden bell chamber. The intrepid bellringers carried out an inspection, did a bit of oiling of metal parts and installed new bellropes. They pronounced the bells safe and proceeded to ring ‘a perfect six-score of Grandsire Doubles’.

“After that exciting event, we suspect that the bells remained largely or completely silent for many years.”

Specialists have advised that the bell frame was dangerously rotten, the bell metal in the four oldest bells was too thin to be safely tuned without cracking and even if it was attempted “the bells are so far out of tune with modern expectation that sympathetic corrective tuning would not be possible”.

In December 2020 the PCC agreed that the best solution was to remove the bells from the tower, have them properly conserved and restored by bellfounders Taylors of Loughbourough, fitted with new headstocks and rehung for stationary electronic chiming.

Thanks to local fundraising and grant funding, £4,800 was raised and the bells were sent off. However, it is now time to bring them back. With an application for £10,000 grant funding underway, the team need to raise a further £7,000 to bring the bells home.

To support the cause visit www.justgiving.com/campaign/StSampsonsChurchbells