Church of St.Mary, High Street, Streatley, West Berkshire. - Bell Towers on Waymarking.com

The parish church in Streatley is dedicated to St.Mary. It has a C15th tower with the church body rebuilt in 1865 by Charles Buckeridge in a neo Gothic style in flint, rubble and tile with stone dressings, parapeted gable ends and tiled roofs. It is of a standard layout with a west tower, nave, aisles - north and south, south porch, and chancel with north and south vestries.

The tower is of three stages and has a diagonal buttress at the north-west angle and angle buttresses at the other three angles. Built on a plinth, there are two string courses plus a parapet string course and a coped and battlemented parapet. On the southern face is a three-stage half octagonal newel turret which has a square first stage and a pyramidal stone cap. A Caernarvon arched doorway in the south has a boarded door and is the access to the first-floor ringing chamber, there are narrow rectangular windows in the top stage. The west face has a two-light window with quatrefoil above, the church's west window. At the second stage there are narrow rectangular, quarry-glazed windows to north, south, and west giving light into the ringing room. Above this the bell chamber has one square headed two-cusped light louvred bellchamber opening with hoodmoulds on the north, south, and west, that to the south has a clock face above it.

The bells are a mixed six of varied age. The heaviest, and one of two cast in 1649 by Ellis I Knight of Reading who was in partnership with one Henry II Knight, weighs 431kg and sounds in the key of Ab. The other is the second weighing 177kg and sounding Eb. Henry II Knight has his name on the third which he cast in 1661, it sounds Db and weighs 188kg. 70 years its junior is the fourth, cast by Richard Phelps in 1737, weighing 275kg and sounding C. Phelps was born in Avebury, Wiltshire in c.1670. He became master of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London in 1701 and this bell for Streatley must have been one of the last he cast as he died in 1738. (Phelps' greatest claim to fame was the casting of Great Tom for St.Paul's, London, in 1716, it weighs 3,900kg and is 2.06m in diameter.) The other two bells were cast by Mears & Stainbank of London, the same foundry as Phelps was master of, in 1887 and 1936 for the fifth and treble respectively. The fifth must have been a replacement for an older bell which failed in some way, most likely it developed a crack. It sounds in Bb and weighs 321kg. The treble was added to the ring of five which were then present in 1936 to make a ring of six. This is quite a common way of augmenting a peal of bells and enables the ringers to ring more complicated methods and to ring for longer without repetition. Being the treble it sounds a higher note than the others, but still in the key of Ab, of F. Usually the treble is also the lightest bell in a ring of bells but in this case it is not being heavier than both the second and the third at 199kg.

There is a seventh bell in the church but it's not in the tower, it is the Sanctus bell and is by far the oldest. It hangs at the back of the church in a specially made frame and is complete with canons and clapper. There is a cast-in inscription round it's crown in abbreviated Latin but the founder is unknown. What is known that it was cast about 1549, is 16.75" (0.425m) in diameter and sounds G.

The bells are rung on a regular basis for Sunday Divine Worship and at other times for weddings, practices and by visiting ringers.

Thanks to Dove's Guide for the bell weights and notes information.

Address of Tower: St Mary's Church Church Lane, High Street Streatley, West Berkshire UK UK RG8 9HU Still Operational: yes Number of bells in tower?: 6 Rate tower: Tours or visits allowed in tower?: Yes Relevant website?: Not listed

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