Talk:Bellfounding/Archive 1

Merge
Merge to bellmaking makes sense to me. Jokestress 03:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Courtyards?
'Church courtyards' is a term I am completely unfamiliar with - and I live in England and like visiting parish churches. Generally a church might have a path leading to the main porch and going around the church, but I can't think of any churches with anything that might be described as a courtyard (a term which, after all, refers to an enclosed area within inns of court - ie it is totally surrounded by buildings.) We have graveyards by our churches, but not courtyards. Sometimes there might be a larger paved area by the tower (which often is at the west end of the church). Might a more general term such as 'on site' or 'within the bounds of the church' or 'close to the church' or 'in the surrounding area' be used, as 'courtyard' is misleading. 81.156.124.135 (talk) 09:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes I admit the term is ambiguous, 'churchyard' would be more appropriate. I'll try to look for a citation which makes mention to this more specifically. France3470 (talk) 11:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Foundries
"Bellfounders traveled from church to church and it wasn't until the nineteenth century, with the creation of railroads, that more centralized foundries were established.[3]" Rubbish. Look at Whitechapel Bell Foundry for a start!! Many, many old bells (17th and 18th century) in UK parish churches have the date, place and sometimes even the name of the foundryman who made them - in a foundry, not on site.81.156.124.135 (talk) 09:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting. I haven't looked into specific foundries, rather I mainly relied on sources giving a general overview of bellfounding to compile the information for this article. Information about bellfounders being itinerant is mentioned in practically every source I looked at. Clearly this isn't true in entirety, though I doubt very much that it's fully erroneous. I imagine that this was simply the general trend, and that there were, as with many things, a number of exceptions. Of course further research and citations are need to fully get to the bottom of this. I'll look into it. France3470 (talk) 11:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Good job!
Hey France, just wanted to commend you on a job well done. I'm glad we did the split so that we could have this now great article. Keep up the good work! Wizard191 (talk) 14:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Swung bells
I removed this statement: The largest bells, such as Big Ben, weigh several tons and are meant to be rung by swinging the clapper instead of the entire bell. Swinging large bells would potentially cause structural problems for the towers they are housed in. Big Ben, which is not swung, weighs less than several swung bells including the St. Petersglocke in Cologne and the World Peace Bell at Newport, Kentucky. It's true that swinging large bells can cause structural problems for the towers they are housed in, but those problems are for the architect to overcome, and they are successfully overcome in many towers. In any case that's an issue which is irrelevant to bellfounding, IMHO. stanning (talk) 16:40, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Perspective
The historical information seems severely lacking--some lovely information on bells in Britain, but nothing about their invention or early bellfounding. There's only a vague mention of "Eastern bells"; when and where did these bells exist and how did they differ from later European bells? Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about the subject myself. Knight of Truth (talk) 14:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I have plans to eventually expand this section further, as it does present, as you point out, a very one-sided perspective on the subject. I know for instance that Russian bellfounding is a particularly interesting topic and quite different to that seen in Britain. Unfortunately though I have been unable to come by much information on this subject. All the books I have come across tend to focus on British bells. Clearly some further researching is in order, which I'm looking forward to investigating further at a later date. Please feel free to edit and add material to the article as you see fit and let me know if you come across any further information which may be of help.  France 3470   ( talk ) 14:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Gap in History
What I still don't get is how bells came to Europe from China in the first place. Could someone please elaborate on that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.202.217.173 (talk) 04:08, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

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