The Minster Church of

Published Date:
15 April 2009

Bells at Sunderland Minster could be ringing out in celebration by Christmas as refurbishment on the chimes starts.

The tower at the Minster has been muted for years since the rickety old bell frame started to move, sparking safety fears and putting two of the chimes out of action.

But with the help of the Friends of Sunderland Minister, donations from the Echo-backed Minster Peals Appeal and a legacy donation from former bell-ringer Ann Todd, the Minster managed to scrape together enough cash to right the problems.

The repair bill is expected to be about £50,000, including refurbishing the existing eight bells, making another two and building a new bell frame.

David Cox, tower captain at the Minster, said: "It will be excellent. It will be fantastic to have another church in the area with 10 bells. St Andrew's has 10, St Ignatius has eight and Holy Trinity in the East End has eight, though they aren't rung very often as it's a redundant church.

"It will be good for the area, as well. Hopefully, they'll be back by Christmas. They will usually be rung every Sunday morning and evening and on a Monday night at bell practice."

He added: "We've got half a dozen bell-ringers at present, so we'll need to recruit some new bell-ringers once they're back and we have 10 bells."

Mr Cox said the Minster's team of bell-ringers had been practising at St Andrew's church to keep their hand in while they are waiting for the refurbishment work to be done.

The eight bells are being removed this week and will be sent to a firm based near Chesterfield in Derbyshire, to be refurbished.

The two new bells will be fashioned by a company in Whitechapel in London – one of only two manufacturers in the country.

The new bell frame, made of steel, will be set at a different height in the tower to take some of the strain off the structure – parts of which date back to the 13th century.

The bells have rang out from Sunderland Minster for centuries, but the chimes have not been refurbished since the 1930s.

Church administrator Sandra Thurlbeck said the congregation and visitors were now seeing a piece of church history in the making.

But she also warned passers-by to take no heed of the church's clock faces – which have all stopped at different times as work takes place to remove the bells.

She said this was because parts of the clock workings had to be taken out to allow the bells to be lowered from the tower through a series of trapdoors.