Church Bells and Bell-Ringing: A Norfolk profile
Paul Cattermole
The Boydell Press £25
(978-1-84383-782-4)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50 (Use code CT577 )

BELLS, bell-towers, and bell-frames in Norfolk form the basis of the late Paul Cattermole's scholarly book, first published in 1990 and now reissued.

Cattermole, a mathematics teacher and bell-ringer, was official archivist at Wymondham Abbey, and Adviser on Bells to the diocese of Norwich. A tenth of Norfolk's churches, he says, have substantial remains of interesting old frames and fittings, and his detailed study of these, with diagrams, moves from the complexities of trusses and braces that contain the forces generated by bells swinging full-circle, to nitty-gritty historical details, such as the arrival of nuts and bolts that allowed bells to be attached to headstocks more securely than by nailed iron bands.

He also charts the development of change-ringing, that peculiarly English form of music-making. Beginning with tenth- and 12th-century details of the ringing prescribed in great monastic churches to announce the plethora of daily services, he moves on through the developments in bell-hanging that made change-ringing possible - to the belfry ructions and reforms of the 19th century.

He finishes with a study of Norfolk bell-founders, from Godfrey le Belleyetere (c.1220) to the Redenhall Foundry (1878-85). He lists the founders' methods and places of work, and illustrates their distinctive marks and lettering on the bells.

The author, who died in 2009, visited every tower about which he writes. His researches include churchwardens' accounts, parish registers, and diocesan faculty books, the wills left by 17th- and 18th-century bell-founders, newspaper advertisements for public ringing contests, and the diaries of country parsons.

The photographs are poorly reproduced; but the diagrams are excellent; and Cattermole's work shows historical and archaeological method at its best.