Bells and Bellringers
The tower contains a ring of ten bells (diatonic scale, equal temperament, in the key of A440), all from the Loughborough foundry of John Taylor & Co., installed at various times during the period 1988 to 2002. They form the lightest ring of ten bells in any church, and are all tuned on the 'true-harmonic' principle re-developed by that foundry just over 100 years ago, some 300 years after the same principle had been discovered and developed by the Hemony brothers in the Netherlands, and subsequently lost after their deaths.
| Bell | Date | Inscription | Weight (Cwt/Qtr/lb) | Diameter (inches) |
| Treble | 2001 | In memory of Peter Border | 2-1-6 | 20 |
| 2 | 2001 | (as 1) | 2-2-12 | 21 |
| 3 | 2000 | Oxford University Society of Change Ringers 1872-1972, 1973 Whitechapel, 2000 Taylor | 2-3-5 | 22 |
| 4 | 2000 | (as 3) | 2-3-27 | 23 |
| 5 | 1990 | Whites of Appleton Church Bellhangers, Recast 1990 | 3-0-21 | 24 |
| 6 | 1990 | (as 5) | 3-1-14 | 25.25 |
| 7 | 1990 | (as 5) | 3-3-24 | 26.75 |
| 8 | 1990 | (as 5) | 4-1-23 | 28 |
| 9 | 1990 | (as 5) | 5-3-1 | 31 |
| Tenor | 1988 | John Taylor & Co Founders, Loughborough, Recast 1988 | 7-1-12 | 34 |
Brief history of the bells
Before 1874, the tower contained a ring of five bells, cast at various dates between 1626 and 1717, by Abraham Rudhall, Henry Knight, Ellis Knight and Richard Keene. In 1874 these were replaced by a 'stock' ring of six from the Whitechapel foundry of Mears & Stainbank, hung in a new timber frame. The treble bell of the old five was subsequently sold by Mears & Stainbank to Alfred White of Appleton, where it was incorporated into the ring of ten at that place. It did not last long, being recast in 1875. (Its successor was again recast in 1976!) The 1874 frame and ring of six bells did duty until 1973, when the octave was completed with the addition of two treble bells given by the Oxford University Society of Change Ringers (OUSCR) to mark the centenary of the Society and which were installed in modified framework, providing the opportunity to re-hang the old treble in new fittings. By 1986, the fittings of the five largest bells were in a poor condition and overdue for renewal. A project was initiated by the then current members of the OUSCR to have this work done, and the costs were defrayed by funds raised by the undergraduates of the Society together with contributions from earlier generations of members. In the course of this work it was found that the tenor bell had a crack in the crown. This was relatively insignificant and in all probability had been present from the beginning - bells of that vintage had an iron clapper suspension loop cast-in, thus providing an unsuspected auto-destruct mechanism for later generations! It proved to be a useful stimulus, however, to get the access traps re-opened after they had been effectively blocked by the organ installed in the 1960s. In 1988, a new tenor bell was given by local ringers and the change-over took place during a period when the organ was dismantled for repair.
It was later found that an auxiliary trapway could be opened on the east side of the tower, whereby raising and lowering of bells could be carried out without interfering with the organ, and thus replacements for the remaining five 1874 bells were cast. After some delay, a faculty was obtained and the new bells rang out first on Easter Day, 1991. Again the expenses were defrayed by a local ringer. Eventually the six bells of 1874 were acquired for installation in a church 'somewhere in Australia', and after a few peripatetic years during which they were moved from bell-hanger to bell-hanger (at one point being seized as security) they ended up at Mandurah, near Perth. The (almost) final stage came when the West End Project was conceived, since the removal of the organ mechanism from the bottom of the tower would allow the complete replacement of the 1874 timber frame with something more serviceable.
Thus with great enthusiasm the OUSCR took on the task of raising the funds to install a new steel frame, to be built in-situ in the tower by one of the Society's volunteers, aided by reinforcements for the heavier tasks (such as raising some six tons of concrete to make a ring beam foundation). The generosity of members was such that it was possible also to replace the centenary bells added in 1973 with Loughborough equivalents. The re-hung bells came into use in Spring 2001. While this work was in progress, one of the Society's most distinguished members died in Autumn 2000. Peter Border was well-known amongst ringers everywhere and arguably the greatest ringer of the 20th century. His funeral saw a vast concourse of ringers from every quarter, and his widow Ruth requested that the collection should be given to the work in hand at St. Mary Magdalens. Such was the extent of this collection that we felt, rather than just apply the money to the work in general, it should form the basis for an appeal to ringers generally to provide two new bells which would give a ring of ten. Although there was a slight incongruity in making two such small bells a memorial to Peter, who was distinguished amongst other things for his great record of ringing heavy bells including the tenors of Exeter, Liverpool, York and St Paul's London, all in excess of three tons in weight, we felt that he might have smiled reasonably benignly at our plan. Thus the final instalment in the story was the casting and installing of the two treble bells of ten. They came into use late in 2002. A good deal of experimental work has been done since then to bring the acoustic balance in the tower up to an acceptable standard, but kind opinions from our many visitors have given much reassurance.
