ABINGDON BELLS: Tower Internals4 THE TOWER: Internal arrangements
4.1 The levels in the tower are illustrated in one of the main drawings (Figure 1). The arrangements include the ground floor entrance to the church, a ringing room on the first floor, the clock room, the bell chamber and an access platform at the base of the spire. These are described in further detail below.
4.2 The lower stage of the tower serves as the north porch or main entrance to the church. At present it is open to the floor of the ringing room, but the redevelopment project includes the creation of an intermediate room (Figure 1) to be used as a workroom and storage area for the parish archivist. Access to the tower is via a narrow passageway in the west wall between the tower and the adjoining rooms leading off the north aisles. A newel stair in the south-west corner gives access to the higher levels of the tower.
4.3 The ringing room is on the first floor. It is entered from a door in the west wall. The room is lit by lancet windows - two in the north wall and single lights in the east, west and south walls - and the window reveals carry on up above the ceiling. There is a shaft for the clock weights in the north-east corner, and an iron ladder in the south-east corner leads up to the clock room (Figure 1). The clock pendulum hangs down into the ringing room is an enclosed steel frame on the north side of the tower. On the walls of the ringing chamber there are several peal boards from 1886 and a stone tablet commemorating the restoration of the bells in 1961 (Plate 15, Plate 16).
4.4 The clock room is in a false floor created between the ringing room and the bell chamber and there is no access from the newel stair. It is reached by an iron ladder from the ringing room. The clock mechanism is housed in a wooden case on the north side of the room and there is an enclosed shaft for the clock weights in the north-east corner (Figure 1). A sound chute from the bells passes through the clock room. At this level there are wooden tie-beams in both planes, the north-south ones (just below the bell chamber floor) being at a higher level than those running east-west (slightly above the tops of the lancet windows).4.5 The bell chamber is at the top of the newel stair, and the door sill is just below the heads of the lower bellframe. The belfry floor is some three feet below the bottom of the bellframe, and it is carried independently on a set of joists which span the tower between the east and west walls. At about this point there is an offset, increasing the internal dimensions of the tower. There are four large and ancient beams (east-west) immediately below the lower bellframe (shown on Figure 1, Figure 2). There are wooden tie beams in both planes above the belfry window openings, the east-west ones above those running north-south, and the upper frame of 1885-6 is partially supported from upright posts running up the walls to the underside of the lower tie-beams (Figure 4 and Plate 1). There is a sound chute (marked on Figure 3) through the frame on the east side of the tower (Plates 2, 5 & 11).
4.6 A ladder up the west wall leads from the bellframe to a platform in the base of the spire from which there is access to the parapet through a small door on the north side. The Sanctus bell hangs in an opening at the base of the north side of the spire and a box has been constructed round it to keep pigeons out of the belfry.
© Copyright 2006, Chris Pickford