BELLRINGERS at a Prittlewell church will soon be ringing the changes as a project to recast its bells nears completion.

St Mary’s Church has a long history of bellringing, but after wear and tear on the existing bells left them sounding a little past their best, a fund was founded to raise £148,000 for the ten bells to be recast.

Last summer, the fund was handed a £25,000 grant from the Gannett Foundation, run by the Echo’s parent company Gannett, which marked the final stage of fundraising for the epic project. It will also see the tower of the Grade I listed church strengthened and repaired.

Now the business of casting the new bells has finally begun, at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, in London’s East End. The Gannett money is being use to pay for the recasting of bell number seven.

The ten new bells will enable bellringers to go on learning and practising their historic art through the award-winning St Mary’s-based Prittlewell Ringing Centre.

Peter Sloman, fund chairman and founder member of the ringing centre, said: “Seeing everything going on at the foundry was very exciting, and to see the whole project coming to fruition is really very pleasing.

“All the new bells have been given by people with a relationship with the church. There’s a real personal story behind each bell.”

Established in 1570, the foundry is Britain’s oldest manufacturing company. It is famous for being the birthplace of Big Ben, the mould for which is proudly hung on the wall of the foundry’s moulding shop.

The recasting of St Mary’s bells began with a visit by foundry workers to the church itself to inspect the bells and bell tower, and measure up for the job. In the first casting for the church, the skilled foundry team cast one of the bells, using almost a ton of red-hot metal. Mark Backhouse, foundry works manager, explained: “For a complete project like St Mary’s, it’s a long time from start to finish, maybe as long as six months. It takes three weeks to make the moulds for the bells, which is why we cast bells roughly every three weeks. The whole casting job takes up a couple of months, then there is the tuning, which will take around a month.

“Then the bells need to be fitted up and put into a frame, which will be built while the bells are being cast and tuned.”

The process of casting bells has barely changed for hundreds of years, and the skills involved can take a lifetime to learn, not least the painstaking process of tuning each bell.

Mr Backhouse said: “You are not tuning to a shape, you are tuning for the sound, so the finish doesn’t matter. The important thing is what it sounds like. There are five notes in one bell. Your ear blends them together, and that’s the sound you hear.”

Rayleigh resident Nigel Taylor is a master bell founder, and made the stamps for the bells’ inscription by hand. He has been working at the foundry for more than 30 years, after coming to the profession through his own love of bellringing.

He said: “I am always pleased when a cast is finished. I am happy when you install a new ring of bells and ring them for the first time. It’s very nice to be involved in a local project where I know the people involved.”

Mr Taylor is also the foundry’s head tuner, as well as being responsible for arranging the inscription on each bell and overseeing the mould making.

He said: “For a small bell with a short inscription it will take around three hours, and for a large bell with a long inscription is will take all day.”

The pride the foundry takes in its work is obvious, and no bell is allowed to leave unless it is 100 per cent perfect. Mr Backhouse said: “We don’t make bad bells, we just break them up again and put them back into the furnace.”

For the team at St Mary’s the project is just as personal. Mr Sloman said: “St Mary’s is the oldest listed building in Southend because it goes back to Saxon times, and there is even a Roman floor in the chancel.

“The bells in the church are rung before services to call people to the church, and they have been bells at St Mary’s since 1500.”