oddstruck

Collapse!
by
“Oddstruck”

Part 1: Feltwell, Norfolk

Just before 8:30am an 25th October, 1898, Bert Willingham, only 5 years old, left his uncle’s house on his daily task of fetching the milk from Mr Lambert’s farm, near St Nicholas Church, Feltwell, Norfolk. Abut the same time, several workmen employed by Bardell Bros of Kings Lynn to repair the tower, having breakfasted at their lodgings and washed it down with a pint or two at the nearby Chequers Inn, strolled over to the church to start the days’ work. The tower was shrouded in scaffolding as work to repair the ancient tower had been in progress for some days. They had almost reached the church when the landlord’s wife called them back for some reason. They stopped and started to return. Seconds later, with a noise that, it was later said, could be heard for miles, the tower split in two (along the lines of an old, previously repaired rack; see photo 1) and most of it fell into the churchyard. Young Bert, having collected the milk, was so frightened by the noise of what he thought was the church collapsing that he dropped the milk and ran home crying. On telling his story, he was given a good hiding for telling lies; the sound of the collapse had evidently not be heard at his home! Later, as the news spread, it was realised that he had been telling the truth and his uncle apologised, but the events of that morning made a lasting impression on him. The workmen, too, never forgot their narrow escape; had they not been called back, they would have been beneath the tower, with dreadful consequences.
The collapse of the tower was no surprise to Herbert J Green, a Norwich Architect and Diocesan surveyor. In a report early in 1898, he had recommended the removal of 4 of the bells as “The weight of all five bells was too much for a tower which had never been constructed to bear the strain of such a peal” He further advised that the upper portion of the tower (the octagonal belfry), be entirely rebuilt, at a cost of approximately £250. Some in the parish questioned the necessity of this and called in another architect, who recommended leaving the bells ‘in situ’ while the tower was repaired, not rebuilt. This was the plan that was adopted, with dire consequences.
Upon the collapse of the tower, Mr Green wrote to the press disclaiming all responsibility as his advice had been rejected. He could have been forgiven for saying, “ I told you so!” to all and sundry and illustrates the folly of accepting a cheaper alternative
Tower collapses are nothing new. From the Middle Ages onwards, they have been frequent occurrences, caused by primitive building methods, inadequate materials, insubstantial foundations or even all three, as builders strove for bigger, grander churches. Ely Cathedral’s Norman central tower collapsed in 1322, and was replaced with the magnificent Octagon. In most cases the tower was rebuilt and the builders usually learned by the mistakes of their forefathers and rebuilt stronger and better than before. East Anglia has been particularly prone to tower collapses; the lack of suitable stone for building was a primary cause. Feltwell has (or rather, had) a round tower built of flint, reputedly of Saxon origin, surmounted by a 15thC octagonal turret. It was and is still a mainly agricultural village on the edge of the fens, unusual (though not unique) in having two churches serve a fairly small community. However by the early 19th C the newer, larger St Mary’s had become the main place of worship. The benefices were consolidated in 1805 and although St Nicholas’s was ‘thoroughly’ repaired in 1834, use of the church declined and the last marriage was conducted in 1855. In 1862 the chancel and vestry were removed and in 1864 it was closed for services other than funerals. In 1898, as we have seen, the tower collapsed and was never rebuilt. The 20th century saw little improvement in the church’s fate. It re-opened in the 1920s and was used for services in winter; being smaller than St Mary’s it was easier to heat, but in 1973 the unequal struggle to maintain two churches was ended when St Nicholas’s was declared redundant. For a while its fate hung in the balance: demolition was a real possibility but was averted due to a campaign by a few dedicated villagers and it is now in the hands of the Redundant Churches Trust. Two services are held each year; one on the Patronal Festival in June, the other a candlelit Carol Service in December.
The Bells
So far no mention has been made of the bells. St Nicholas contained a ring of five bells, and unfortunately they fared no better than the tower and the rest of the church.
(No. 1) "Michael Darbie made me 1661".
(No. 2) "John Draper made me 1621".
(No. 3) "Virginis Egregie Vocor Campona Marie".
(N o. 4) "Etheldreda Bona Tibi Dantur Plurima Dona",
(No. 5) "John Draper made me 1614".

The three lightest bells were smashed when the tower fell. The shattered remains and the two surviving complete bells were stored for many years behind the organ until the fate of the tower was decided. For a time there was a Tower Restoration Fund (evidently it was not covered by insurance) but eventually rebuilding was ruled out and the remaining stump of the tower was sealed. It was not until 1967 that the three broken bells were sold for scrap and the tenor bell sold to a new church near Cardiff. The proceeds of the sale were used to pay for repairs to the belfry of St Mary’s. The medieval frame was removed and the three bells hung for chiming by Tayors. The 4th, the ‘Etheldreda Bell’, was presented to Ely Cathedral and still stands in the nave. (Saint Etheldreda founded the monastery at Ely.)
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The Ringers
Despite the lack of services at St Nicholas, the church had a band of ringers who practised regularly and who were devastated at the collapse of their tower. We know their names; William Beamis was Tower Captain: he and his son Walter were thatchers. The other members of the band were James Shearing, a wheelwright, James Arnold, Blacksmith, Jack Nicholls who was 19 at the time of the collapse, and Salisbury King Lambert, a farmer whose job it was to fetch the beer from the Chequers to the tower on ‘practice night’. We can only guess at how much ‘practising’ was actually done and the ringing abilities of the band. Given the lack of services at St Nicholas it is probable they rang (or chimed) the three bells at St Mary as well. The band had however paid for a set of 12 handbells. Tradition states that they used to practice on these during winter in the warmth of the pub rather than the cold belfry! The also used to tour the village at Christmas playing Christmas Carols. (These bells were in storage for many years but have now been restored and are in regular use).
William Beamis (1853-1933) had taken charge of the tower following the death of his uncle Daniel Spencer, who had taught him to ring, three years previously. William’s great-grandfather had been hung for his part in the Littleport Riots of 1816 and his grandfather jailed. On his release he moved to Feltwell and married a local girl. His grandson, as well as being a master thatcher, provided a Pony and Cart taxi service to nearby Mildenhall. On the day of the collapse father and son were re-thatching Pear Tree Farm House nearby. On hearing the crash they dashed up the ladders onto the roof, from where they could see the devastation. They hurried to the scene, where, it is told, William stood on the green and wept. Perhaps he realised that the chances of the bells being rung again were remote. Incidentally I can find no trace of either William or Walter in the 1901 on-line census. Some further investigation as to why is needed, when time permits.
William (and probably the other ringers too) continued to ring the bells of St Mary’s, ringing for the accessions of Edward VII and George V, the victories at Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith and for the end of the Boer War and World War I. He retired after ringing in Feltwell for 32 years and died in 1933, aged 80. His son Walter, the last of the Feltwell bellringers, died in 1977, aged 93.He used to repeat the following rhyme:
When the 8 bells of Swaffham rang they were supposed to say:
“We are the best bells in the town”
To which the five bells of St Nicholas, Feltwell, replied:
“Who can beat we five?”
The two bells of Weeting would boast:
“We two, we two.”
To which the three bells of St Mary’s, Feltwell, retorted:
“That’s a lie, that’s a lie.
Now, all that remains at St Nicholas is the sealed stump of the tower. In the church, the old clappers are hung on the wall, along with the following poignant epitaph;
The Silent Tongues
Five of us used to speak to you
Two hundred years and more
We called you from your cottages
And from the old fen shire
With lofty tower one morn we fell
In Eighteen Ninety Eight
No more we’ll call you to your prayers
For silence is our fate
AJO - 1977

Part 2: Isleham, Cambs and Colne, Hunts

A few miles away across the Fen into Cambridgeshire and back in time 36 years to 1868, another tower, Isleham, had suffered a similar fate but with a far happier outcome. As at Feltwell, work was in progress to ensure its stability. The buttress had been taken away and the tower shored up with timber. The men working on it had doubts as to its safety, and one of them had seen a mullion fall, so they had retreated to The Griffin pub to talk about how to proceed. It is fortunate that they did, for around 5p.m. it fell. Mr G Robins, churchwarden, was driving back from Newmarket, and instead of seeing the tower, saw a cloud of dust rising up from where it had stood. Hurrying to the scene, he surveyed the ruins of the tower, on top of which, miraculously undamaged, lay the 5 bells. At over 18cwt, the ‘minor five’ were one of the heaviest rings in the Isle of Ely.
A new tower was speedily commissioned and built. Too quickly; the work had not time to settle, and drew away from the nave wall, so that the tower virtually stood without any support. The bells were re-hung and one of the ringers told the vicar that he could feel the tower swaying when they were rung. For fear of a second disaster, the bells were only chimed for nearly 30 years, until a new vicar, Revd H W Robinson, arrived at Isleham. In 1897 he asked the Archdeacon for advice, who advised bracing with iron girders. Instead, the following year, when some other restoration work was being undertaken, the ‘gaping cracks’ between the tower and old nave walls were filled with cement grouting. In his ‘History of Isleham Parish and St Andrew’s Church’, the vicar describes ‘bucket after bucket being poured into them from the inside until it oozed through the walls to the outside’. It does not sound very scientific but it seems to have worked. The oscillation ceased and the bells were rung again, as they are to this day. In 1968 they were re-hung on ball bearings by Arthur Fidler. Taylor’s cast a new treble bell, given by the Peyton family who had been Lords of the Manor for many generations. Two bells were found to be cracked and were welded by what the Ely Standard described as a ‘new process’ developed by the Welding Research Institute of Little Abingdon near Cambridge, surely one of the first such restorations undertaken by what was to become Soundweld? The welds, like the tower, have stood the test of time and they make an interesting if somewhat melancholy sounding minor six.
Isleham restored both bells and tower; Feltwell lost both. Travel twenty or so miles south-west, over another border into Huntingdonshire, to Colne, a small village on the edge of the Fens with a Medieval church with a small tower containing 4 bells:
1 & 4 John Draper made me 1607
2. Milles Graye made me 1654
3. Charles Newman made me 1700
Revd T.M.N. Owen visited the church in 1889, gathering information for his ‘Church Bells Of Huntingdonshire’ and recorded: “Bells all clappered and blocked up with twigs; tower said to be unsafe, probably so, from all appearance; a movement afoot for removing and rebuilding the
church.” In 1892, three bells were taken down and placed in the church ‘for the relief of the tower’ It was to no effect; on Sunday April 19th 1896, one of the parishioners noticed a crack in the tower. It appeared to grow larger as the Curate and congregation looked on, and it was decided that a professional opinion should be obtained as soon as possible. However, before any action could be taken, at 8am on Friday 24th April, part of the tower fell away and went through the roof of the nave with a “resounding crash”. By 2:30 two thirds of the nave had collapsed, and by 6pm the rest of the nave had subsided, leaving only the chancel intact. Again, no one was injured. The treble was picked out unhurt among the ruins and the bells in the church were also undamaged.
Plans were soon made to rebuild the church. It was estimated it would cost £1000; when asked how they would find the money, the Rector said ‘by determination and putting out shoulders to the wheel.’ The ruins of the church inspired a local poet known only as “Wanderer” to write the following lines:

When tottering man falls low and strives to rise
He needs the church to point him to the skies
So when our age-long church falls crumbling to the ground
From man whom she has raised should a help to rise be found.
By January 1898 over £900 had been raised and work started in January of the following year. By August 1900 the work was complete and the new church was rededicated by the Bishop. The bells were rehung for chiming and this is how they are sounded today. Full-circle ringing would seem to be impossibility, but at least the bells survived to be re-housed in the rebuilt tower, and can still call the people of Colne to worship.

Acknowledgements and Sources

The inspiration for this article came while browsing through the excellent Ely DA website, which gives details of all towers which formerly had rings of bells as well as current rings. Seeing an entry for ‘Feltwell’ and knowing it had no bells I clicked on the entry and discovered what had happened to the tower. An Internet search revealed the excellent site on Feltwell past and present, which gave details of the history and collapse of the tower in several articles. I merely pulled them all together, so grateful thanks to the compilers of the site especially the late Mr. A. J. Orange, local historian who campaigned to save the church, and the Webmaster Mr Paul C. Garland. Other material came from a variety of books and websites listed below. Also thanks to Tony Ferridge for the photo of Isleham church.

http://www.ely.anglican.org/bells/index.html
http://www.feltwell.org.
http://www.isleham-informer.org.uk/
Church Bells of Huntingdonshire Revd T.M.N. Owen 1899
Fenland and Marshland Villages Anthony Day 1993
Church Bells of Cambridgeshire J. J. Raven 1881
Somersham parish: 2000 years in and around John Bell
the churches of Somersham, Pidley and Colne
Ely Standard, 1968

Photo Captions

1. St Nicholas Church Feltwell. 1862-1898. Dates pinpointed as thatched chancel demolished in 1862 and before the tower collapsed in 1898. There is a crack almost 3/4 of the way up the round tower (the crack had been pointed) which is the exact point of the "breakaway" when the tower collapsed.
2. The tower shortly after it collapsed at 8.30am, 25th October, 1898.
3. The church as it remained for some years after the collapse.
4. William Hammond Beamis, (7/11/1853-25/2/1933) circa 1896/7, in working clothes probably announcing someone's death.
5. St Nicholas Church as it is today.
6. The clappers from the bells of St Nicholas
7. The 4th (Etheldreda) bell from St Nicholas now in Ely Cathedral
8. Isleham Church pre 1862, from an old engraving.
9. The ruins shortly after the tower collapsed on 22nd July
10. The re-built tower as it is today.
11. Colne Church shortly after the collapse, before the rest of the nave fell.
12. All that was left was the Chancel
13. The new church at Colne.

3rd October New Bell delivered to St Mary's Church in memory of Harold G. Doughty, 1918-2002, by his widow

Piczo