English Artisans Begin Restoring Norwood Town Hall’s 50-Bell Carillon After Five-Year Silence-October 7, 1983

High above the streets in the open-air bell chamber of Norwood Town Hall, two young English craftsmen are hard at work breathing new life into a local architectural treasure. After falling silent for five years, the town’s magnificent 50-bell carillon is finally being restored to playable condition.

The town hired John Taylor & Co. (Bellfounders) Ltd.—a renowned bell-founding firm based in Loughborough, England, located about 110 miles north of London—for roughly $29,000 to refurbish the carillon bells, framework, and the manual clavier (keyboard).

Meticulous Craftwork in the Tower

The two craftsmen arrived from England on Tuesday and dove straight into the painstaking restoration work on Wednesday, expecting to complete the project in about a month:

• Graham Knight, 37, spends his days high up in the open-air bell chamber, sitting on the steel support beams accessible via narrow catwalks. His intricate job involves “stripping down, cleaning, making sure they all work, and reassembling” all the movable components of the mechanism.
• Peter Hayward, 30, works downstairs crafting pivot bolts for the clappers and attaching them securely to the bells. He is also tasked with stripping down and cleaning the clavier while revarnishing all its exposed woodwork.

While the massive 7,800-pound Bourdon bell—the monumental central bell that anchors the instrument—remained suspended in its steel frame where it has hung for 55 years, other components required direct intervention. Two smaller replacement bells were cast to replace originals that went missing during recent town hall renovations. Among the weathered rows of bronze resting on the carilloneur’s room floor, a shiny copper-tone 12-pound bell stood out, with a second 9-pound replacement due to arrive shortly.

Artisans of a Centuries-Old Trade

Both men speak in the soft, melodic accents of the English Midlands. Hayward hails from just north of Nottingham (“Robin Hood country”), while Knight comes from Cambridgeshire in East Anglia.

Though traveling up to 50 weeks a year keeps Knight far from home, he embraces the nomadic lifestyle. Living temporarily in a local rooming house has proven anything but lonesome. “Far from,” Knight said exuberantly. “I’m meeting new people every week and working with new people every week.”

For Hayward, who normally works back in the office designing bell frames, the overseas trip offered a chance “to get a bit more knowledge about carillons.” Working in a highly specialized, rare trade, Knight reflected proudly on the permanence of their craft: “It’s not dying, but we make things that last several centuries.” When not working on municipal towers, Knight enjoys traveling to churches to participate in change-ringing peals, where groups ring bells in precise mathematical patterns. “It’s the pleasure of being able to mix in with people, strangers… and make a joyful sound and then go off to a pub later,” he smiled.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger