Bells - Their Musical Note, Diameter and Weight

The table below shows the comparative mouth diameter and weight for typical English Change Ringing church tower bells. Data derived from the Whitechapel Foundry. This is only a guide, tower bells have been produced by many different founders over the centuries, each having their own style of bell. The Thickness of the bell wall has a great bearing on the weight. The table shows the weight of the bell excluding the headstock, clapper and wheel.

The bell weights are given in the classical style of Hundredweight-Quarters-Pounds. There are 28 Pounds in a quarter and four quarters in a hundredweight. So therefore a hundredweight is 112 Pounds in weight. A hundredweight is roughly 50 Kilograms. There are 20 hundredweight in a Ton.

Strike Note	---- Mouth Diameter ----		--------- Bell Weight ---------
Strike Note	Inches	Millimetres	Pounds	Cwt-Qtr-Lbs	Kilograms
F	24.1	612	322	2-3-14	146
E	25.4	645	378	3-1-14	171
D#	26.6	676	420	3-3-0	190
D	28	711	504	4-2-0	229
C#	29.5	749	560	5-0-0	254
C	31	787	644	5-3-0	292
B	32.5	825	756	6-3-0	343
A#	34	863	840	7-2-0	381
A	36	914	980	8-3-0	445
G#	38	965	1176	10-2-0	534
G	40	1016	1344	12-0-0	610
F#	42.5	1079	1624	14-2-0	738
F	45	1143	1932	17-1-0	878
E	47.5	1206	2268	20-1-0	1030
D#	50.5	1282	2688	24-0-0	1221
D	53.5	1358	3192	28-2-0	1450
C#	56.5	1435	3808	34-0-0	1730
C	60	1524	4480	40-0-0	2036

Practical Example

If for example a six bell tower supplied by Whitechapel, had a 10½ hundredweight tenor, the Key Note would be G#.

The whole ring of bells would be
Treble F 2-3-14
Second D# 3-3-0
Third C# 5-0-0
Fourth C 5-3-0
Fifth A# 7-2-0
Tenor G# 10-2-0.

When visiting a tower you may find a chart showing the weights of the bells, plus additional information such as inscriptions, year of casting and founders name. The bell's inscriptions can be fascinating. If your would like to know the weights and year of casting of bells in Worcestershire and surrounding counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Warwickshire without leaving your computer. Look at the tower guides in the Knowledge Base / Useful Links section.

Tuning

Church tower bells hung for English Change Ringing are normally tuned to the notes of a major scale. In normal terminology, the Key note of the scale is the first note which is the lowest note. In change ringing the last bell ( The Tenor ) has the lowest note so we use this when we give the keynote for a ring of bells. The note of the first bell ( The Treble ) depends on the Key note and how many bells there are in the ring.

On occasions it may be desirable to ring fewer bells than there are hung in the tower. This may be because there are insufficient ringers present or insufficient with the skill to ring a method using all the bells. To maintain the notes of the bells in the Major scale the back bells are rung for example to ring six bells in an eight bell tower use bells 3 to 8.

In a Twelve bell tower it may be that the back bells are too heavy to manage easily. It may be desirable to ring Six or Eight of the lighter bells. The semitone interval of Twelve is 2-2-1-2-2-2-1-2-2-1-2 the Eight bell semitone interval is 2-2-1-2-2-2 can be found on the back eight bells Five to Twelve, but this requires the heavy tenor to be rung. The front eight of a twelve ( semitone spacing 2-2-1-2-2-1-2 ) may be made into a major key octave by replacing the second with a sharp second. Likewise bells 2 through to 9 can be made into a major key by replacing the sixth with a flat sixth.

Worcester Cathedral has three extra bells; a flat 4th, a flat 6th and a flat 8th; making a total of 15. The diagram left illustrates how the semitone bells at Worcester Cathedral may be used to create varying keys with six, eight or ten bells.