Bells of St Michael's, Southampton

Part of a quarter peal of Little Bob Royal rung on the fine 10 at St Michael and Archangel, Southampton.
The back 8 are a 1923 Gillett and Johnstone ring, with two additional trebles from 1947, by Taylors. A little flighty and oddstruck with the draft, but certainly pack a lovely Gillett hum and lovely bells to get rolling when worked.
Special thanks to Euan for providing the Zoom audio clip for the titles.

[@Steven_Rowe]

Always a joy to hear well struck 10 bell ringing and especially on a nice sounding set of bells.
For some reason a 10 is the most balanced and joyous sound.

[@timmeh1507]

Lovely bright bells!

[@simonbellringer]

Not at all easy to ring and really quite unforgiving. But very nice when rung well

[@timmeh1507]

@@simonbellringer unfortunately on our trip down there in 2020 we couldn't go to the tens, but St Barnabas and Bitterne Park were enjoyable.

[@nickpodas5636]

@@timmeh1507 st marys are taylors hohoho

[@RingerThomas]

I find the treble bells here don’t match the back eight as Taylor’s were not casting bells to any profiles back then.

[@simonbellringer]

No, the trebles are really shrill and quite flighty. The 2nd particularly sticks out. The back 8 are better for sure

[@RingerThomas]

@@simonbellringer Could Gillett of augmented them? I’m sure in 1947 they were still in production?

[@simonbellringer]

@@RingerThomas they were, and I don't know why they didn't. Given Taylors cast St Mary just two years earlier, in 1945, I wonder if the Southampton ringers looked on them favourably. Maybe Taylors were cheaper or G&J didn't want or couldn't take the job. I'm only speculating of course...

[@RingerThomas]

@@simonbellringer I could look at Taylor’s and order a 25cwt ring of ten in D tuned to the same tenor pitch as Abergavenny. It doesn’t mean I’m gonna get a good result.

[@benjamindaniel8467]

@@simonbellringer I was told that G&J's quote was too high, which is why the augmentation job was awarded to Taylors. I believe the bells are in the original eight-bell frame, with 1 & 3 hung above 2 & 4. For this reason the treble is (or was) fairly quiet. I used to ring here semi-regularly and always found the bells conducive to good ringing (more so than St Mary's). On a more recent visit it seemed that either my memory was failing or someone had meddled with the internal acoustics, to the point that the front bells were unbearably piercing. Hopefully that isn't the case now. As you say, the front three are quite flighty and were always unpopular at the practices I went to!