Category: News

Annual report from the Kingston upon Thames Bellringers for the Church’s Annual Report 2025

Our team has around 20 ringers so we usually ring all 12 bells on Sundays mornings and evenings. We ring methods as well as rounds and call changes which is extremely satisfying and developing our abilities.

It’s a really fun group and we enjoy our social get togethers after ringing as well. The ringers have had barbeques and curries together and our Annual Dinner was held at the Black Horse in Kingston in February.

We welcome Matthew Davies to our team and Catherine and Charlotte are progressing really well. Max (16) has recently rung his first full peal and is in the Surrey squad for the National Young Ringers Competition in July. We’re very proud of him!

Congratulations to Mary who is now an accredited ART bell handling teacher. Kate and I are grateful Mary has taken some of the load of teaching from us.

We very much enjoy the support of our regular local visitors and other visitors from towers have included Hereford Cathedral, Trinity New York, Manchester Cathedral, Washington DC and Dublin.

On 8 May we rang for the 80th anniversary of VE Day and in July for the King Athelstan celebrations with a group from Dorset. We also rang for the launch of Kingston 2025 to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of Athelstan’s coronation, including the unveiling of the Seven Saxon Kings Embroidery project. 

Our outing included Ditcheat, Shepton Mallet, Cheddar, Chilcompton and Midsomer Norton. On the Sunday morning we were applauded by the congregation at Radstock after ringing for service! The 2026 outing will be a day outing to Southampton and Romsey.

We had a spring clean in June and again in November to keep the ringing chamber spick and span. Thanks to all who helped with this.

The flag has been put up for the usual church festivals including All Saints Day.

The bells have undergone a major renovation in 2026 which included the following items:

• Rebushing, refacing and repainting the clappers
• Cleaning out and regreasing the bearings
• Replacing gudgeons (pivots) on the 11 th bell
• Cleaning down, undercoating and repainting the bell frame.

We’re grateful to all our sponsors who contributed to the project, including a very generous bequest from Shirley Bolton in memory of Andrew and a grant from the local Surrey Bellringers.

Further details can be found here: We are home! – Kingston Bell Ringers

Finally, can I thank all the ringers for their continued support, Kate Flavell for her work as Secretary, Kate Corney as our Social Secretary, Chris Ridley for being our Treasurer, Paul Corney for steeple keeping and finally So-Shan for her excellent social media posts which show us to be such a vibrant and active tower.

Paul Flavell, Tower Captain

by Paul Flavell, Tower Captain

The bells of All Saints were all cast at various times by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and two of the bells (8 and 9) are celebrating their 200th
birthday in 2026. The other bells date from 1879, 1936 and 1972, but together they form a fine harmonious ring with clarity of sound in the ringing chamber which makes them attractive for ringing complex peals. They were most recently worked on in 1972 when they were rehung in a new metal frame and augmented to 12 with a tenor of 19cwt. The vicar at the time, the Rev John Martin, asked how many bells Cathedrals usually had – the answer was 12 – so he said – we must have 12 bells at Kingston! Since then the bells have rung thousands and thousands of times and have given sterling service.

However, Nicholson’s have been for some time recommending work on the bells, like rebushing the clappers, flushing out and regreasing the bearings. Some of the bell fittings dated from the 1930s renovation and were in urgent need of remedial work to make them fit for the next 50 years. Oh and the bell frame would certainly benefit from being cleaned down and repainted as well. But the cruncher was the discovery that one of the gudgeons on the 11th headstock had rusted loose and was in danger of failing in the near future.

After discussions with the church we got comparative quotations from
bell hanging companies, but decided on Nicholson’s as they currently
service the bells and we are always satisfied with their work. It made
sense to carry out all the work including painting the frame in one
project.

Quotation duly agreed and fundraising bolstered by a very generous bequest from Shirley Bolton in memory of Andrew, one of our most loved ringers, we placed the order with Nicholson’s. I must place my thanks now to everybody who has generously contributed to the project and we completed the fundraising ahead of schedule.

Chris and Martin from Nicholson’s started the work in February 2026 and was to take approximately 5 weeks. In the meantime the Kingston team rang at Thames Ditton and Cobham for services, and practised at All Hallows’ Twickenham and Hampton. We’re grateful to the ringers of these churches for their kind hospitality during this time.

Within a week, the bells were jacked up on blocks, all the clappers out and ropes and wheels and bearings off the bells. During the disassembly further issues were identified including a crack (hidden inside the headstock socket) in the tenor stay which would need to be replaced, a badly worn slider board and the need to replace bolts in the
tenor clapper with larger gauge bolts. All the clappers, bearings, tenor stay and 11th headstock were taken to Bridport for refurbishment. A further discovery during the dismantling work was that the crown staple bolts to the front three bells had worked loose in their respective staples. In the treble, the bolt had reached the point where it is a miracle it had never come adrift! Phew! All three staple bolts have now been attended to.

The 9th bell had a broken ‘twiddle pin’ (two bolts either side of the
headstock to adjust the clapper for odd struckness) which made the bel
very late at backstroke. Chris managed to drill out the old twiddle pin
and tap in a new thread and replace the pin so the bell now strikes
correctly.

New oversize gudgeon pins were fitted to the 11th headstock. All the bearings were flushed out (removing some very old grease that was almost solid), cleaned thoroughly and regreased with modern engineering grease. The clappers were refaced and repainted in a hard wearing black hammerite type paint. The knobbly polyurethane paint on the clapper balls (to stop muffles slipping) was left in place but could probably do with being recoated soon.

Whilst the fittings were away, Martin worked incredibly hard grinding old paint off the frame, cleaning all the dust from under the carpets and the carpets themselves. He removed nine bags of rubbish, mostly dust, paint flakes, rust, bricks and bits of wood and old wiring and general detritus! He was fortified by free coffee and cake from the church café – thank you Sarah!

Martin spent several days applying a zinc-based primer paint (9 litres!) to the frame and headstocks. The wheels were coated in lignum-base preservative, apparently bat friendly. (I pointed out the only bat we’ve got is Bob who hangs from the spider). The final frame coat is a lighter grey enamel gloss paint (17.5 litres!). The new chiming hammers got a coat of paint too. The lighter grey makes the belfry lighter and helps when we are scrabbling underneath the bells to put muffles on.

We asked Nicholson’s to provide the invoices ahead of schedule so these could be paid and the church reclaim the VAT (over £5,000) under the Listed Places of Worship Scheme. We got the claims in just in time before the scheme was discontinued and were pleased these were successful.

Reassembly commenced on 23 March and completed on 31 March. We welcomed our Vicar Joe to the try out on April 1 where he gave a prayer for the refurbished bells. We carried out a spring clean on April 4 and are ringing on Easter Sunday. The bells sound a little dull at the moment but will brighten as the new strike points on the clappers bed in. My fears that removing years of dust would make the bells much louder were unfounded! All the ringers are pleased with the job and we are delighted to be back home again.

We’d very much like to thank all our donors to the project, Nicholson’s
for their very professional and careful work, and the church and our
ringing team for their support for the project. The bells will be
rededicated at a service on Sunday 19 April.

The renovation works on our bells and bell frame are complete and we are home! 13 ringers came out to test out the bells to check for snagging, but everything has been completed to a high standard and everything is in order.

Reverend Joe Moffatt popped up the tower and opened the ringing with a prayer to our renovated bells and to the bell ringers.

Some nerdy stats: 9 litres of undercoat was used (3 1/2 x 2 1/2 litre cans) and 17.5 litres of Nicholson grey topcoat was used (3 1/2 x 5 litre cans). Chris from Nicholson said that the grey gives it a brightness and opens up the pit (for when we are scrabbling underneath the bells to put muffles on).

It’s good to be back!

Look on Instagram for the videos of the ringing.

Changing the clock is a manual process in the tower! None of this automatic digital malarkey! It’s a real skill, heritage and tradition!

Thank you Mike for teaching and to Kate C, Paul C and Charlotte for learning and the pics and report.

Kingston’s clappers being worked on at Nicholson’s. Photos by Henry Grice via Thomas on a visit to the workshop.

Progress report and photos from Kate C:

Report, 25 March: Tomorrow Martin and Chris from Nicholson will open up the traps to raise the wheels and the headstock for the 11th into the bell chamber when all the painting is finished. Only the 11th bell cage, all the headstocks and top of the frame are left to go for applying a final top coat tonight. Martin was trying not to paint himself into a corner!

On Monday 30th, they’ll be back with the new tenor stay, all the clappers and remaining fittings to put the bells back together onto the frame for ringing.

The bell ringers will be back ringing on Easter Sunday.

Photos from Pip, Thursday 26 March:

Martin and Chris are doing a great job. It all looks so spic and span. They got 9 bags of rubbish from the ringing chamber!

The frames are now being painted. You can see the undercoat is grey and the final colour for the frame will be the lighter gloss coat.

Nicholson are now due back w/c 23 March to reassemble and finish the painting.

We can’t keep away from our bells or clappers! Adrian was in Dorset so decided to pop by Nicholson’s to check on our clappers and head stock!

Report from Paul, 14 March 2026: “Martin from Nicholson has been working solidly in the tower for the last nine days. He thought the bell chamber was in generally good condition and spent four days grinding old paint of the frame (see the wire brush!), cleaning all the dust from under the carpets and the carpets themselves. Martin has removed nine bags of rubbish, mostly dust, paint flakes, rust, bricks and bits of wood and old wiring and general detritus!   The bell chamber and ringing chamber are quite clean and I am impressed with the work done to date. The final article will look wonderful!

He has spent several days applying a zinc-based primer paint to the frame and headstocks. The wheels will get a coat of lignum-based preservative, apparently bat friendly. (I pointed out the only bat we’ve got is Bob). The final frame coat will be a lighter grey gloss paint. The new chiming hammers will get a coat of paint too. We need to have a competition to guess how many litres of paint they will finally use!   

The clappers, bearings, 11^th headstock, tenor stay and two slider bars are in Bridport for refurbishment/replacement/painting as required. 

Martin and Chris will be back w/c 23 March to do the final painting and reassembly and also fix the twiddle pin on the 9th. They expect to be there all that week with a couple of days contingency w/c 30 March, so we should be on for our spring clean on Saturday 4 April and first ring on Easter Sunday.  The bells are likely to be louder and possibly a little brighter until the clappers new strike points bed in.”

  

Week two: photos from Martin at Nicholson – cleaning up completed and now preparation for painting of the frame begins.

Before pics …

After the cleaning … ready for the painting!