{"id":1169,"date":"2021-03-05T10:17:03","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T10:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2021-03-05T10:35:29","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T10:35:29","slug":"saved-by-the-bell-britains-last-traditional-foundry-handed-a-lottery-lifeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/2021\/03\/05\/saved-by-the-bell-britains-last-traditional-foundry-handed-a-lottery-lifeline\/","title":{"rendered":"Saved by the Bell! \u2013 Britain\u2019s last traditional foundry handed a Lottery lifeline"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\u00a35m restoration secures Loughborough\nBell Foundry\u2019s future<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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John Taylor &\u2008Co  \u2013 the \u2008UK\u2019s last traditional bell foundry \u00ad\u2013 has embarked on a \u00a35m restoration project, thanks to Lottery funding and donations from other charities and individuals.<\/p>\n

The Taylor family settled their business in Loughborough in 1839 and moved to a new, purpose-built Bell Foundry in 1859, in Freehold Street, from where they still trade today.<\/p>\n

Traditionally in past centuries when heavy objects could not be moved by road, bell founding was an itinerant craft, with the founder setting up a temporary furnace in a field adjoining the Church he was casting bells for. With the building of the canals in the 18th century, and later the railways in the 19th century, transport became much less of a problem.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Taylor\u2019s have cast more than 25,000 bells, which now hang in over 100 countries. This includes the largest church bell in Britain \u2013 Great Paul \u00ad\u2013 which hangs in St Paul\u2019s Cathedral.<\/p>\n

The bells of the church of St Thomas, on Fifth Avenue, New York, heard on The Pogues and Kirsty McColl\u2019s much-loved Christmas song Fairytale of New York, were also cast at the foundry.<\/p>

David Potter,  a Trustee of The Loughborough Bell Foundry Trust, explained that bell founding has always been a precarious business.<\/span>
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He said: \u2018Over the years there was never sufficient profit to invest in the upkeep of the buildings. I\u2019m sure any accountant would have advised selling and moving to a new site in new premises.\u2019<\/span><\/p>

\u2018However, there is something very special about a site where thousands of bells that ring in churches, cathedrals, town halls, universities, and civic buildings all over the world were born \u2013 and it fell to our generation to save it.\u2019<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Working with English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund, Taylors put forward a scheme to restore the buildings and develop the site to make it more accessible for education and tourism.<\/p>

David added: \u2018The owners, for their part, willingly gifted all the land, buildings, machinery, archives and intellectual property to a charity \u2013 The Loughborough Bellfoundry Trust. Taylor\u2019s then became a tenant of the Trust, and the rent they pay for the exclusive use of the Foundry pays for the upkeep of the buildings.\u2019<\/p>

The restoration will cover all aspects of the site, and will include new roofs, gutters, windows, drains, electrics etc., together with some new building to make the site function more efficiently and be accessible to all members of the public.<\/p>

Added David: \u2018Emergency repairs totalling more than \u00a31.5 million have already been completed in the past three years, and the major restoration scheme which will begin late in 2021\/early 2022 will cost more than \u00a35 million.<\/p>

\u2018A total of \u00a33.45m of this will come from National Lottery funding, although numerous donations have been received from other charities and individuals to meet the \u2018matched funding\u2019\u00a0 needed to release the HLF\u2008grant.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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taylorbells.co.uk<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u2018Most of this money has been secured, and the go-ahead has been given, but any further donations are most welcome as some aspects of the proposed scheme had to be removed to keep within budget \u2013 and these could be re-instated,\u2019 he added.<\/p>

The Company, which employs a team of 30, have a range of specialisms including casting, tuning and finishing bells. It also produces the associated parts and mechanisms for bells such as frames, headstocks, wheels, hand-bells, carillons and ropes.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a35m restoration secures Loughborough Bell Foundry\u2019s future John Taylor &\u2008Co  \u2013 the \u2008UK\u2019s last traditional bell foundry \u00ad\u2013 has embarked on a \u00a35m restoration project, thanks to Lottery funding and donations from other charities and individuals. The Taylor family settled their business in Loughborough in 1839 and moved to a new, purpose-built Bell Foundry in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1180,"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions\/1180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bwcmg.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}