Hardwick Village Church, Northants:

This church had a set of tubular bells, one of these was damaged and due to the nature of the bells, they could not be heard properly from the tower. There was however, an old clock bell in the church that was cracked. It was decided to have this bell repaired and replaced in the tower. The damage to the bell was extensive. The bell had a crack in the soundbow that extended up to the waist. It had been welded a long time ago, probably by a firm that welded bells in the 1930‘s. This firm was often unsuccessful in its repairs and this was the case here. The crack had grown and the weld that had been conducted was in a very porous condition.

A lot of work had to be carried out on this bell prior to its welding. Due to the previous weld, mentioned before, all the old porous weld metal had to be removed as well as grinding out the new cracks that had been unsuccessfully stopped. 44“ of crack were ground out in the end.

This resulted in a piece of the bell becoming detached which was later welded back in.

The bell took 5 hours to weld and 12Kg of especially cast bell metal filler sticks were used in the process.

The bell is now completely repaired and has been returned to Eayre & Smith who will be re-hanging it in the Church.

The reverberation time of 61 secs was taken and the bell will now sound as it did when it was cast.