THE BELLS OF SUSSEX

About Us

Welcome to The Bells of Sussex!
This is a guide to bells listed in churches, chapels, RC churches, and more...
I wish to provide you with a complete up-to-date chronological guide, featuring the history, photographs, inscriptions and details of each bell and their frame within a tower or building in the county.
I'm Kye Leaver, a campanologist from Crawley, St John the Baptist. My aim is to go round every church and secular place with bells, following in the footsteps of George P Elphick, a former ringer from Southover who wrote Sussex Bell and Belfries, using his book as a guide. Since 1970, there have been many changes to our bells, and it's up to us to re-write history to continue the hard work started by our late bell historians.
In 1864, Amhurst Daniel Tyssen published The Church Bells of Sussex in the Sussex Archaeological Collections, which Elphick fully revised and corrected.
By making an online directory, I can update towers easier if anything changes.
Please bear in mind that this directory is still in early days so you may see bits throughout that appear unfinished or under development.

Things I'm currently working on:
Cuckfield, Holy Trinity
Chapman & Mears
THE BELLS IN THE VALLEY - a book containing a chronology of the bells in and around East Dean, West Dean, and Singleton. by Kye L Leaver
CLOCKS - a new section in the database that will feature the turret clocks around Sussex.

REMODELLING THE LAYOUT OF EACH PAGE TO NEW FORM - This update will take place over a couple of months to change the layout of each page to the new form. We intend to separate the information of the tower, bells, and clocks into their own sections, with clocks having their own page all together, and brief data on the tower at the top of the page. We will also being moving from the Elphick frame scheme to the more developed scheme by Christopher Pickford. A general tidy up of each page will be carried out too.

Projects in Sussex

Place	Details
Crawley - West Green, St Peter	Bell to be rehung and a new clapper to be installed by Whites of Appleton or O'Shea Engineering
Twineham, St Peter	Plans have been made to augment the ring of 5 to a 6 by adding a treble and hanging it in a frame above the others by Whites of Appleton.
Pevensey, St Nicholas	The bells are planned to be rehung by Nicholson Engineering in 2024.
Penhurst, St Michael the Archangel	To be tuned and rehung for swing chiming. Work scheduled to commence around late October. The contractors are Nicholson Engineering
Findon, St John the Baptist	The Sanctus bell is to be rehung by Whites of Appleton.
Worth, St Nicholas	A possible augmentation to 8 in the future.
Heene, St Botolphs	Bells 4 & 5 have become unsafe to ring due to lateral movement, and therefore their original Warner Headstocks are to be replaced with metal ones. The contractors for the work will be Blyth & Co.
Battle, St Mary	The clapper for the 5th has broken, and is to be replaced by O'Shea Engineering.

CHICHESTER CATHEDRAL
PROJECT COMPLETED!!

The work by Matthew Higby & Co to install a rope guide in the ringing room, and the addition of a training bell has now been completed.

SUSSEX COUNTY ASSOCIATION OF CHANGE RINGERS

Bell Ringing in Sussex

The Sussex County Association of Change Ringers was founded January 24th, 1885 by George F Attree. Today, there are over 1200 members across 130 churches. For more information on how you can get involved with bell ringing in Sussex, go to:
https://www.scacr.org/
Sussex ringer David Kirkaldy published a fantastic book about the association, showing how it was formed, and how it has developed over the years to what it is today. It covers all the years from 1885 - 2010.