Bristol Rural Branch
Rudgeway (St Helen)

Name or Dedication: St Helen

Location: Rudgeway, Gloucestershire

Grid Reference: ST632865

This church was the original Parish Church of Alveston. Now a ruin, it was replaced in 1885 by the present church of St Helen, Alveston about a mile further up the road towards Gloucester.

The two heaviest bells of this ring were incorporated into the ring of six at the new church. The treble was left in the tower until about 1955, when it was hung for chiming outside the new church of St Mary In The Barn, Winterbourne (ST648809). When that church closed in the mid-1980s, it so happened that the nearby church of St Michael the Archangel, Winterbourne was having some work done to its tower roof, and the opportunity was taken to move the bell, along with its original fittings, into their belfry for storage.

Bells previously hung for full-circle ringing

Source: Bell data from Nick Bowden, Andrew Bull and Paul Grainger-Allen. Diameter of treble from "The Church Bells of Gloucestershire" (Revd Henry Thomas Ellacombe, 1881). Further information from Chris Greef and Terry Jefferies.

Where the exact weight of a bell is known, it is given in the traditional way using the British imperial units of Hundredweight, Quarters and Pounds (cwt-qtr-lb) in which there are 28 pounds in a quarter, four quarters in a hundredweight, and 20 hundredweight in a ton (one hundredweight is equal to approximately 50.8 kilograms). However, if only an approximate or calculated weight is known, it is given to the nearest quarter of a hundredweight.

A bell's diameter is measured across its mouth (open end) at the widest point and is given in inches (to the nearest quarter of an inch), one inch being equal to approximately 2.54 centimetres.

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