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OS: SP026724
Alvechurch, St Laurence
The Alvechurch parish church of St Laurence is tucked away south of Bear Hill with road access to the large church car park off School Lane. This is a large church with the adjoining Ark
, an attractive modern building.
This is an attractive church in an well maintained churchyard built on the top of a hill.
The outside of the north side of the tower has a small door that opens on to a stone spiral staircase that leads up to a sizable ringing room. There is plenty of room for a dozen, or more, people in addition to those ringing the 8 bells. The ceiling has a complicated arrangement to drive the 3 clock faces.
2012-12-13 [ expand ]
I visited for the first time on Thursday 13th December 2012 with the Four Shires Guild as part of their 278st Mid-week Outing
. I was unable to make the morning towers and could only make this one and Beoley.
I started by ringing up bell #5 and finished by ringing down bell #6. I rang the Tenor for a touch of Grandsire Triples and took the opportunity to ring some more Stedman Triples on bell #4. The first two attempts failed, though it wasn't me that was going wrong, on the third attempt we did much better but still didn't make it to the end, this time I may have contributed to it falling apart.
While there the bells at the time of the W&DCRA AGM in April 2012 could not be rung, a great deal of progress has been made and they can now be rung, although there is more work to do. That said, they seemed to go very nicely
The Bells
The tower has a ring of 8 bells with a tenor weighing 12-0-1 in G. Dove's Guide includes details of the bells at St Laurence. No information on the bells history or inscriptions was to be found in the tower.
The Worcestershire & Districts Change Ringing Association have additional information on St Laurence, Alvechurch.
