St Sampson's Church, South Hill, Cornwall need their five historic bells restored. They have not been heard and fully rung for over 50 years, due to the condition of the tower and their dangerous and derelict state. But now the process of restoration has begun.

Update 20/12/202 The Rambell walk raised over £500 towards this. Fantastic effort, thank you all. Looking forward to the next Rambell adventure!

Check out the photo gallery above.

Recently the listed bells, four dating from 1698 and the newest and biggest (weighing around 8 hundredweight and measuring 36 inches in diameter) from 1831, have been dismantled and taken down from the tower and taken to the Taylor Bell Foundry in Loughborough for the next stage of restoration.

Sadly the bells are unusually badly out of tune and, whilst exceptions can be made to improve bells listed for preservation, in our case the bell metal is so thin that any tuning would risk the bells cracking and we have been advised by specialists that static chiming is the best option. Despite this limitation, and in the face of other major demands on funding, the parishioners are nevertheless keen for the bells to resume active participation in the life of the church by installing a chiming mechanism.

When the funds have been raised, the work will include conservation of the bells, new headstocks and fittings and adapting them to enable stationary chiming. The bell frame will be repaired and adapted before they can be re hung and the wiring, switches and control clock fixed in a suitable position in the church

Bell hanger Andrew Ogden said: " These are some of the oldest bells I have worked on and I look forward to re hanging them".

Thank you for any donation that you can give. We are a small congregation and need the help of many supporters to get St Sampson's bells sounding out from South Hill again.