Escrick

St Helen

Practice night: Tuesday

14 bells, 35-2-10 in B.

The Georgian Church in Escrick had 3 bells - possibly transfered from the medieval church which was demolished to make way for Escrick Park when the village was also moved.
Within about 80 years, the clasical Georgian Church was demolished, to be replaced by a gothic Victorian Church (1856 - 1857). At a time when most churches cost 4 or 5 thousand pounds, over £20,000 was spent on a gothic building with marble columns.
The farmers of the parish provided the new church with a ring of 5 by Warners of London. In February 1923, a plumber working at the church, left his blow torch on when he went (to the pub?) for lunch, and the building was gutted by fire. All the marble columns were destroyed, except for two in the bapistry, the bells crashed to the floor and broke.
The metal was collected, and the bells re-cast at The Whitechapel Foundry. Three trebles were added to make aring of 8. The bellfry floor also appears to have come from Whitechapel, the beams were all numbered, like the frame parts.
In 1996 these bells were replaced by the former bells from St Martin-in-the-bullring. These bells were hung in a new two-tier 10 ton galvanized steel frame set on a massive re-inforced concrete gillage. The new frame contained 14 pits, to allow for latter augmentation. The more mellow tone of the new bells proved extremely popular in a village which had fallen out of favour with the previous ones.
The thirteen bells were augmented in 2001, with a new treble, to celebrate the new millenium - the B & D marked the millenium by paying for an inscription on the new bell, which was largely funded from the peal fees of visiting bands.

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