Bell Tower - St Andrew , Winston, Suffolk, IP14 6LG
Posted by: 
greysman
N 52° 12.582 E 001° 11.374
31U E 376299 N 5785906
There is a light ring of five bells in the Medieval west tower of this small, rural parish church, rung from the ground floor.
Waymark Code: WMR34K
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 05/05/2016
Views: 1
The parish church of St.Andrew is a Grade II* listed building. It is Medieval with a restoration of c.1880 and consists of a nave, a chancel, a west tower, and a south porch. Built of mainly plastered flint rubble to the nave and a flushed C19th flint facing to the chancel with freestone dressings. The tower is of flint rubble with extensive crude dressings of pink/buff brick which is an unusual feature for this early date (probably early C15th). Apart from the belfry windows which are ashlar and Y-tracery, the tower would have been entirely plastered. There is a good early C16th porch of red brick with crowstepping, polygonal buttresses, and moulded and labelled doorway with three image niches above, moulded rafters with an arch-braced ridge-piece only.
The ring of six bells are hung in the church tower to enable ringing in the English style. They are rung from the ground floor. Following is a table extracted from Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers showing the weights in kg, and sounding note of the bells.
Bell Weight Note Casting date Founder
1 F 1662 John Darbie
2 Eb 1662 John Darbie
3 D 1638 Miles I Graye
4 C 1737 Thomas Gardiner
5 272.15 Bb 1638 Miles I Graye
John Darbie was casting bells in Ipswich from 1651 until 1691. Miles Graye I cast bells in Colchester from 1598 until 1649, and Thomas Gardiner was casting from 1709 until 1745 in Sudbury whence he moved to Norwich and ran the foundry there until 1760. (Info from the Bell Founders Database).
The given co-ordinates are for the south porch.