Report on the St Helen Bell Frame (1764-2006)

Prior to the removal of the old bells and frame from St Helen's Church, Chris Pickford was commissioned to produce a historical record documenting especially the wooden bell frame. (One side of the old frame is preserved in the clock chamber.)

This report is produced by:

Chris Pickford FSA

23 Clent View Road, Norton, Stourbridge, DY8 3JE ^*

Tel: 01384-393000

© Copyright 2006, Chris Pickford and contributors

Reproduced on this website by kind permission of the author.

Biographical note

Chris Pickford is a freelance archival consultant, having been previously the County Archivist for Bedfordshire (1986-1998) and Director of the Church of England Record Centre (1998-2001). He has written and lectured widely on bells and bellframes, and his publications include Bellframes: A practical guide to inspection and recording (1993). He contributed to The Archaeology of Bellframes: Recording and Preservation (1996) edited by Christopher J. Brooke.  He is also a bellringer and a past Master of the Ancient Society of College Youths, the ringing society founded in London in 1637 and still active today.

In 1992, with funding from the Society of Antiquaries, he established a "Rescue Recording Project" for bellframes with the intention of raising interest in the subject and encouraging the careful recording of frames under threat of demolition or alteration. He has personally recorded some nineteen frames in detail, and the project archive now includes records of over fifty recent cases.

His other historical interests include church fabric, stained glass and clocks. He is the author of a four-volume series of books on Bedfordshire Churches in the Nineteenth Century (1993-2002) and a biographical dictionary of Bedfordshire Clock and Watchmakers 1352-1880 (1991). He has completed surveys – for eventual publication – of bells in Warwickshire and of Victorian and later stained glass in Bedfordshire.

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^* From September 2007:
4 Walmsley Court, High Street, Kinver DY7 6HG
Tel: 01384 878435 & 07811 453525