The Church of St.Peter in Great Totham is some 1km from the centre of the southern part of the village south-east along Hall Road. It is Grade II* listed having a chancel and nave of C13th or C14th build. The north aisle, vestry and organ chamber, south vestry and porch are C19th and there are other C19th restorations and a rebuilt bell-turret containing a ring of six bells. The walls are of flint rubble, puddingstone, freestone and oolite, whilst the roofs are red plain tiled with terracotta finials. The bell-turret has a shingle clad splay spire.
The turret is built above the C14th west wall of the church and is a timber construction, which has been restored, but it retains the original traceried two cinquefoiled louvred lights on each face which are the bell chamber openings. Below the tower in the west wall is the C14th west window of two cinquefoiled ogee lights with tracery under a square label. Above this is a Herringbone tile panel, possibly Roman tiles, and a vertical slit window towards the apex of the roof line. There is also a great deal of puddingstone in this wall. The tower internally has moulded tie beams, arched braces and wall plates.
As mentioned above there are six bells in the tower, all cast by John Warner & Sons in 1878, and overhauled by Eayre & Smith in 1991. These replaced two pre-Reformation bells which at the time were both cracked. Since casting the bells have been retuned and thus have lost some of their mass, currently being lighter by some 5 or 10kg than when cast. The largest of these bells, the tenor, weighs in at 350.2kg and sounds the scale note Bb. The other bells are gradually lighter as their note rises in pitch to the treble sounding G and weighing 187.765kg. The bells are rung from a shallow raised platform at the west end of the nave, there being no tower arch the ringers are very much part of the congregation. Practice night is Friday at 2000 and Sunday service ringing is at 0930, other ringing by arrangement.
There is an interesting print in a wooden frame in the ringing chamber written by the then vicar, Rev.Henry T.W.Eyre, who came to Great Totham from Coggeshall in the late C19th. It gives details of the bells and an explanation of the 'Customs for Death and Funeral Knell.' transcribed here:
At the expiration of 12 or 24 hours after death,
the knell begins with three strokes on all the bells,
beginning at the treble for a male; two strokes in the
same manner for a female. Then the age is struck on
the tenor. The tenor for all over twelve; the treble
for all under that age is raised and struck one blow
a minute for an hour. At its close the bell is lowered
and three strokes thrice repeated are struck on the
tenor for a male; two strokes thrice repeated for a
female.
For Funerals the tenor or treble, according to age,
begins to toll for one hour previous to the internment.
As soon as the procession is in sight, the bell is struck
quickly till the mourners enter the porch.
And now the bell, which had hitherto given out its tone in distant and
broken intervals, became at once more regular and was tolled more rapidly,
till as the dark forms of the mourners were discerned among the trees, the
full peal burst forth joyously, not jarring on the feelings or mocking the
sorrows of the living, but welcoming, as it were, the dead in Christ to their
calm repose, and speaking the Church's greeting to such, as resting from
their labours, were about to be committed to their consecrated bed in sure
and certain hope of a glorious awakening.
This is the only such document I have ever seen in several years of looking round and in churches and, if it is carried out to the letter, or even in part, then Great Totham must be the last place in the country where this practice is remembered.
For further details of the ringing at Great Totham go to:- St.Peter's Bellringers