All Saints Church - The Horseway, Maidstone, UK - Bell Towers on Waymarking.com

All Saints church website tells us about the church's bells:

In the tower, which is 78 feet high, there was a ring of bells early in the fifteenth century. We find Archbishop Arundel blessing bells here; and in 1494, when John Lee, a master of the College, died, the "fourth bell" was rung for a quarter of an hour. In one of the corporation books, under date of 30th July 1604, it is stated that, the "great bell" being imperfect, and the second one broken, a committee, consisting of three curates and the churchwardens, was appointed to have the two bells exchanged or recast, the expense not to exceed £30. There were in 1667 "6 bells well hanged in the steeple".

They where re-hung in 1678 and the great bell was recast by a founder named Hodgson. In April 1708 the vestry agreed to pay the sexton 6 pounds per annum for ringing the curfew bell and for looking after the clock and chimes. The seventh bell was repaired in 1719; and two years later, several of the bells were recast by Phelps of London. There were in 1741 eight bells, and the great bell was repaired in 1762, at the cost of ten guineas. In January 1784 the bells were found to be no longer fit for use, and an order was given to the firm of Chapman and Mears, of Whitechapel, to supply "eight new and musical bells, the tenor to weigh 30cwt, and the rest in progressive proportion, the whole to weigh six tons, at £6 per cwt". A contract was entered into whereby founders were to furnish eight new clappers, and complete the work for £806 5s; but the £552 was to be allowed for the old bells which also weighed about 6 tons, besides £8 2s 6d for their carriage to London and the total balance to be paid by the parish was therefore £240 2s 6d.

The new bells were hung, and "opened" by the Leeds ringers in the same year. On August 16th, 1784, the vestry ordered that "where as the ringing of what is commonly called the curfew bell in winter is useless, and an unnecessary expense to the parish, the same be discontinued for the future". In the minutes of the same meeting, we read that "where as much damage hath frequently arisen from an indiscriminate permission of all persons, whether ringers or not, at their pleasure to enter the belfry, and there to pull about and ring the bells in such manner and for a long a time as they shall choose, whereby the parish hath in times past been put to great expense, it is ordered that no persons whatever, except known and acknowledged ringers, be permitted to enter the belfry without the unanimous consent of the minister and churchwardens."

By the end of the eighteenth century the eight bells had been augmented to 10, supported on very strong oak beams, over which the roof beams show black scorch marks, the only evidence from the fire in 1731 when lightning struck the wooden spire. A new clock was purchased in 1899, from the Gillett and Johnstone Foundry in Croydon. The former clock and chimes were repaired in 1721 and again in 1880. The new clock is still in excellent condition, but now only chiming the quarters and hours using the Westminster chime the old barrel chime being removed in 1976, having been out of action since 1945.

The Chapman & Mears bells had various re-re-castings throughout their time, and were re-hung in the existing frame in the nineteen 20's, by the mid 1950's this anticlockwise ten was becoming more and more difficult and a scheme for reordering was taken on board.

The All Saints Church website tells us:

A Christian Church has stood by the River Medway in what is now the middle of Maidstone, since about 650. The first church on the present site was an Anglo-Saxon building. It survives only in references in manuscripts such as the Doomsday Monachorum at the Chapter Library, Canterbury. By reference to this document, the late Dr. Gordon Ward showed that this church of St. Mary was important enough by the eleventh century to be at the head of an organisation resembling the modern Rural Deanery.The church on this site became called St. Mary's and was a minster church, the base for a community of clergy serving seventeen villages from Detling to Goudhurst. The Archbishops of Canterbury were Lords of the Manor of Maidstone from about 750 until the 1530's and from 1200 they lived in the Manor House they built just to the north of the church.

We do not know what the Anglo-Saxon church looked like. During the Norman period "improvements" would doubtless be made, but everything was destroyed when Archbishop William Courtenay with Pope Boniface II's permission decided in 1395 to pull down St. Mary's and to erect in Kentish ragstone a collegiate church attached to his foundation of the College of All Saints. Parts of the demolished building ( mainly pieces of limestone tufa quarried locally) may be seen in the wall outside the West end of the church. The medieval priest's house stood here. The new church was called All Saints and it was to be served by a college of priests just to the south of the church.

At the Reformation the church had its endowments and property confiscated by the government in London and it became the Town Church of Maidstone. In the 19th Century the single parish of All Saints was divided as other parish churches were built to serve the newly built districts of the town. All Saints remains the municipal church and serves a relativly poor district of Maidstone to the south of the town as well as the town centre itself.

All Saints is essentially a church of one period of architecture. The large, square nave owed much to the influence of the friars who designed their churches to be preaching chambers for large congregations. The Chancel also was no haphazard erection. It was shaped to hold twenty-four priests attached to the College (their memorial is truly in the misericords in the Choir Stalls) and to be a cenotaph to the Founder, whose large and magnificent brass indent, symbolic of the man himself, spreads itself between those stalls. John Harvey has brought forward plenty of evidence to show that Archbishop Courtenay used the country's top master mason, Henry Yevele, as the designer of his church.

In recent years All Saints has been used both for the worship of the parish and for civic and town-wide services. It has also been used for an extensive programme of concerts and a wide variety of music.

Between 1883 and 1907 much work to All Saints was carried out under the direction of the noted Victorian architect John Loughborough Pearson. This included completely new roofs, screens, reredos and wall paintings in the chancel; extending the church for an organ chamber.

Much of the work done by Pearson is coming to the end of its life; other parts of the church also need repair. We would like to restore the church and help equip All Saints for the twenty-first century.

All Saints is Grade I listed with the entry at the Historic England website telling us:

Begun in 1395 by Archbishop Courtenay as a Collegiate church and continued by Archbishop Arundel in 1396-1398, Perpendicular. Built of Kentish ragstone ashlar. Stone buttresses and crenellated parapet. South-west tower. The spire was struck by lightning in 1730 and never rebuilt. Six bay nave with clerestory and north and south aisles. Wooden roofs by Pearson 1886. The south chapel was originally the Chapel of the Fraternity of Corpus Christi. Credence and sedilia of four seats incorporating the monument of the 1st master of the college. Stalls with mediaeval misericords. Early 17th Century font. Monuments to Arcnbishop Courtenay d.1396, John Wotton d.l417 with a mediaeval wall painting at the back of the tower, Sir John Astley d, 1639 and John Davy d, 1631. This is considered to be the grandest Perpendicular church in Kent.