Wotton-under-Edge Branch
Kingscote (St John the Baptist)

Please note that following my withdrawal from ringing church bells in November 2021 I am no longer updating this research project.

Name or Dedication: St John the Baptist

Location: Kingscote, Gloucestershire

Grid Reference: ST818962

Unringable; no slider. The bell is hung with an elm headstock on plain bearings in a contemporary 18th Century oak frame and fittings. The frame incorporates part of the earlier five-bell frame that it replaced.

There is no record of when bells first appeared in this church, but it is known that a ring of five existed until 25th October 1740 when a faculty was granted to recast them into two bells. The smaller of these two still exists as the Sanctus (details below), which is hung with an oak headstock on plain bearings in an unusual wooden frame in the north louvre of the belfry. It has a traditional wheel but no stay or slider. The larger bell might also have been cast in 1740 and then recast in 1795, or it might not have been cast at all until 1795. Both bells have scalloped canons, and neither has been turned.

Bells hung for full-circle ringing

Additional bells

Source: "Church Bells of Gloucestershire" (Mary Bliss & Frederick Sharpe, 1986); weight of Sanctus estimated personally.

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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