Birmingham Places Archives - Page 3 of 12

The Church Bells of Castle Bromwich

April 14, 2015 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

The sound of church bells ringing out in peal is quintessentially English, although English-style ringing can be heard across the British Isles and in former colonies such as the USA and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. At Castle Bromwich the bells are rung every Sunday morning as they have been for hundreds of years. And the ringers have recently set up a project to restore the bells in time for the tercentenary of Sir John Bridgeman II’s new ring of 5 of 1717.

The Earliest Bells

Not all churches can boast a peal of bells. In the Diocese of Birmingham bells are to be found in the towers of ancient churches such as Yardley, Kings Norton and Northfield, while there are bells in some Victorian churches: Boldmere, Selly Oak and Erdington, for instance. The city’s newest bell tower is at the Georgian church of St Paul’s in the Jewellery Quarter where a ring of 10 was installed in 2005.

Of the 188 churches in Birmingham Diocese, 47 have bells. This is a high proportion and Birmingham has a good reputation as a bellringing city.

(Find out more at the website of the St Martin’s Guild of Church Bell Ringers – http://www.stmartinsguild.org/towers/.)

Bells have been used by Christians from about 400 AD when St Paulinus initiated their use to notify local people that a church service was about to start. The first bells were handbells. As the use of bells began to spread throughout Christendom, churches vied with their neighbours to have the largest bell. As bells grew larger, they were hung outside the building and eventually placed in bellcotes.

The first bell in England may have been at Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire which is known to have had one in 680 AD. St Dunstan (c909 – 988) is the patron saint of bellringers. As a young monk he trained as a metal worker later turning his hand to making bells and when he became Archbishop of Canterbury he had bells hung in all the churches in his diocese.

Castle Bromwich chapel in the 12th century

Castle Bromwich church dates from the 11th century. Covering the area of the present chancel, some of the Norman stonework of the old chapel is still hidden behind the wooden panelling near the altar.

It cannot be known for certain, but there is every likelihood that a single bell hung in a small turret at the east end of the church.

Medieval Bells at Castle Bromwich

The small Norman chapel served Castle Bromwich for some 300 years before the church was enlarged in about 1450 with the addition of a large timber-framed nave at the west end of the original chapel.

It is not certain how many bells were hung there, but evidence in the roof at the west end survives showing the location of the medieval belfry. Certainly in 1716 there were three bells there.

Until the 17th century bells were hung on a simple lever and just swung from side to side. If there was more than a single bell, it was almost impossible to control them to ring in any sort of a pattern. This is the style of ringing still heard in continental Europe where church bells are simply rung ad lib.

However, during the 17th century bellringers began to experiment with different ways of hanging bells to give them greater control. Eventually bells were fixed to a wheel enabling ringers to rotate them through 360 degrees. They could now speed up or slow down, start and stop ringing at will; patterns of ringing began to be developed. The system of hanging and ringing bells that evolved at that time is still in use today.

Castle Bromwich church about 1450 (conjectural)

New Bells

Another 300 years passed, until in 1717 Sir John Bridgeman II of Castle Bromwich Hall had the three old bells melted and recast to make a ring of five. The cost was £12 16s. 0d. The bell-founder was Joseph Smith of Edgbaston who was also responsible for other local bells; one of his 18th-century bells is still rung at Sheldon church. It is thought that a new tower must have been built at the west end of the church to house the bells, though no evidence of it now survives.

Joseph Smith's Maker's Mark — Joseph Smith’s Maker’s Mark

Sir John had his name inscribed on the largest bell; the second largest bore the name of John Brooke, the priest from Aston in charge of Castle Bromwich; other bells had written on them the names of wealthy local landowners, family names found in Castle Bromwich over many years: Chattock, Sadler, Thornton.

Bad Behaviour

During the 18th century bellringing became a fashionable pursuit for wealthy young gentlemen and was largely unrelated to the religious worship of the time. To make ringing more interesting a range of patterns of ringing were devised, known as methods, some of them very complicated. Priests generally did not approve of this, as they considered it a leisure activity and unsuitable for a Sunday. Church services were usually announced by the tolling of a single bell.

In country areas, the situation was worse. Historically, the chancel of the church with the altar was the responsibility of the parish priest; the nave where the congregation stood or sat belonged to the people of the parish. It doubled up as a community hall. The bell tower was seen as the people’s part of the church. It was fairly normal for a barrel of beer to be kept in the bell ringing chamber and for the ringers to smoke and gamble. Some vicars locked the ringers out only to have the door broken open on practice nights. What the behaviour was like at Castle Bromwich is anyone’s guess.

A New Church and Plans for a Sixth Bell

Many churches in the 18th century began to increase the number of bells to enable them to ring the increasing number of methods being devised. Again there was a certain rivalry between local parishes as to which church tower could boast the greater number of bells.

Castle Bromwich church in 1717 (conjectural): there is now no physical evidence of tower here, but the bells must have been hung somewhere!

In 1725 Sir John Bridgeman had a new bell tower built, the tower that stands there today. The bells of 1717 were hung in the new tower. Sir John allowed space for a sixth bell which was not put in place at the time. A new bell may have been low on his list of priorities, at this time he was rebuilding Castle Bromwich Hall on a grander scale and also planned to rebuild the old timber church, both very costly enterprises.

Spring Clean

During the first half of the 19th century there were moves to reform and revitalise the Church of England and return it to its catholic roots, a process largely promoted by the Cambridge Camden Society. From 1839 the Society began to encourage a national ‘spring clean’ of churches to return them to a perceived golden age set somewhere in the Middle Ages. This included bell towers and the bellringers. Bellringing should not be seen as an activity separate from the church, but should serve the religious needs of the church. Incumbents were encouraged to take control of the belltower.

The parish priest should appoint a captain of bellringers to be responsible for the band and its conduct. The captain was empowered to fine members of his team for poor attendance, inappropriate behaviour and even for poor ringing. By the end of the century, a new generation of ringers had transformed bellringing and made it a respectable part of church life. Although it continued as an enjoyable hobby, its main focus was on serving the religious life of the church.

A bell being cast at Taylor’s Loughborough foundry

In 1896 Taylor’s bell foundry in Loughborough perfected the scientific tuning of bells. Different parts of a bell resonate at different frequencies and the trick is to tune them so that they make a musical chord. Up until this discovery the various bell founders tended to stick to their preferred shapes and would improve the sound of the bell by chipping small pieces of metal from a circle at different places inside the bell. In recent years the quality of Joseph Smith’s surviving bells has been analysed and they have been found to be very musically accurate castings.

Other founders followed Taylor’s lead and during the 19th century increasing numbers of towers had their bells recast to improve the sound quality of their peals. Greater attention was paid to the way that bells were hung and bells began to be easier to handle. This in turn encouraged more ringers, more ringing and more complex methods being rung.

Birmingham, being a famous bellringing city, saw many towers having their bells recast at this time, many of them by Taylor’s.

A Sixth Bell Is Cast

The Bridgemans, Lords Bradford had not lived at Castle Bromwich since the mid-18th century when they moved to Weston Park. Castle Bromwich Hall had been let to wealthy tenants in the meantime. However, in 1870 George Bridgeman (Viscount Newport), the eldest son of the 3rd Earl of Bradford, moved back to Castle Bromwich with his new wife, Lady Ida née Lumley, the daughter of Lord Scarborough. They both lived here until their deaths respectively in 1915 and1936.

Lady Ida was a close friend of Princess Mary of Teck who married the Duke of York, the future King George V. Lord Bradford had a new 6th bell made to celebrate their wedding in 1893. The bell founder was Charles Carr of Smethwick. Unfortunately the old frame could not take the new bell and Carr constructed a new oak frame, which is still in place. The third bell was now no longer in tune with the new ring and a new bell was cast to take its place.

Fortunately Carr was able to sell Joseph Smith old No.3 bell to the railway works at Derby (now Derby College) as a clock bell where it is still hangs chiming the hours. Luckily, the railway line through Castle Bromwich goes directly to Derby and, in all likelihood, the bell travelled this route.

World War 2

With the outbreak of war in 1939, all church bells were silenced. They were to be rung only in the event of a German invasion. Traditionally bells are rung in reverse in times of national danger. Fortunately, this never happened. However, when Victory in Europe was declared on 8 May 1945, few church bells were rung in celebration. With the bells remaining silent for six years and many bellringers away at war, there were very few people left who knew how to ring them.

Castle Bromwich Bells Recast in 1952

In 1952 Castle Bromwich’s old bells were melted down and recast to make a new ring of six. A fund had been started by Lucy Williams in memory of her bellringing husband John who died at the age of 54. Born in 1872, he was the local blacksmith who lived and worked on Castle Bromwich Green next to the Coach & Horses Inn. He was from a family of Castle Bromwich blacksmiths dating back to the 18th century.

Bell founders, Gillett & Johnston of Croydon cast a new ring from the metal of the old, and the new bells were first officially rung on 22 November 1952. Lucy lived 23 years longer than her husband, dying at the age of 78 in 1949, so she was never to hear the bells cast in his memory. Lucy and John Williams are buried together in Castle Bromwich graveyard.

The first ring of the recast bells, 1952

A New Millennium

In the year 2000, grants from the National Lottery helped to restore 150 bell towers across the UK. 5000 new bellringers learned the craft in order to ring on New Year’s Day 2000 when almost every tower rang out the old and rang in the new. Castle Bromwich was there with the rest!

Bell Restoration Project

The Castle Bromwich bellringers have now set up a trust raising funds to restore, improve and maintain the church bells. The aim is to get the work done by 2017 to celebrate the tercentenary of Sir John Bridgeman’s new bells of 1717.

The Gillett & Johnson bells of 1952 are a fine ring. However, the bell frame installed by Charles Carr in 1893 and the fittings of 1952 are unsatisfactory. The ringers want to restore the installation to good order and to hang two new bells to complete the ring of eight intended 60 years ago.

The Earl of Bradford and The Viscount Hereford are patrons of the project. The former is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Sir John Bridgeman II and Viscount Hereford is the descendant of Sir Walter Devereux who built the medieval wooden church.

You can hear the bells of Castle Bromwich rung in the English tradition and style every Sunday, on holy days, high days and for weddings and funerals. The bells have been rung for the funerals of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother, for the Queen’s Jubilees, for the Millennium, for the London Olympic Games and in commemoration of the First World War centenary.

For more, see the Castle Bromwich ringers’ website – http://cbbells.webs.com/

Edwin Cooper Perry – Knight of the Realm

March 30, 2015 by William Dargue 2 Comments

Although his stay in Castle Bromwich was brief, the dazzling career of Sir Edwin Cooper Perry began with his birth in the village.

His father, Rev Edwin Creswell Perry was from an old Darlaston family and had trained for the priesthood. However, the 1861 Census records that he had no living, being ‘without the cure of souls’, and that he was the schoolmaster of the Classical and Commercial Boarding School on the Chester Road which had been run for many years by John Blewitt.

1938 Edwin Cooper Perry Castle Bromwich boarding school-1 — Castle Bromwich Boarding School

The school was in what had been the Bridgeman, later the Bradford Arms; the building still stands and is now two private houses, Delamere and Wayside.And this is where his son, Edwin Cooper Perry was born in 1856.

The 1861 Census records just eight pupils at the school aged between 6 years old and 13 with the exception of Edwin Cooper Perry who was only 4 years old.

In 1861 Edwin’s father secured the living of Seighford near the county town of Stafford (where he remained vicar for 38 years until his death in 1899 aged 71). Rev Perry ran a boarding school in the vicarage for the sons of gentlemen where he also continued to educate his son.

Eton, then King’s College Cambridge

Young Edwin then spent some time at Rev Thomas Gascoigne’s school at Spondon near Derby before winning a King’s scholarship to Eton College in 1870 where he became head boy. At King’s College, Cambridge, he obtained the highest honours in the classical tripos in 1880.

He then turned to medicine, quickly rising through the ranks to become Dean of the Medical School at Guy’s Hospital by 1888 and Hospital Superintendent in 1892. His skill was in administration and was able to drive forward new initiatives, many of them still in place. He was involved in founding the Dental School and the School of Massage at Guy’s, the College of Nursing and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Knighted by Edward VII

Edwin Cooper Perry was knighted by King Edward VII in 1903 for his work in setting up the Royal Army Medical College in London after the Boer War. In 1900 he joined the Senate of the University of London as the representative of the medical faculty; he served as vice-chancellor from 1917 and principal from 1920 to 1926. He helped organise the medical faculty of Cairo University and became its director in 1926 at the age of 71.

In 1935 Edwin Cooper Perry was awarded GCVO by George V in 1935 in recognition of services to the Prince of Wales’s Hospital Fund with which he had worked since its inception in 1897.

Like his father, Perry was multi-talented: a classical scholar to the end, a musician, a skilled physician and surgeon and a talented administrator. He was shy and modest and was most interested in achieving a goal than being credited with it.

Sir Edwin Cooper Perry died in 1938 at home in Worthing, Sussex and his ashes were buried in Seighford churchyard. (Seighford Council School was subsequently renamed Cooper Perry School in his honour.)

Peter Murray-Willis – Gentleman Cricketer

March 30, 2015 by William Dargue Leave a Comment

Peter Murray-Willis was born in Castle Bromwich in 1910 and became known as a county cricketer, though not to universal acclaim.
His stay here was brief! The 1911 Census has him in London and, after the First World War, he attended St George’s School in Harpenden, a co-educational boarding school almost unique in its day, which attracted wealthy parents of a progressive mind. When the young Murray-Willis was there, the school was undergoing an exciting period of increasing pupil numbers and new buildings. It must have been at St George’s that Peter discovered his love of cricket; the school had its own team and the long-established village eleven played on Harpenden Common just minutes from the school.

From 1930 Murray-Willis played for the Warwickshire Club & Ground team at Edgbaston and briefly for the Worcestershire county team. Then in 1934 he began his career at Northamptonshire under captain Robert Nelson, an old school friend from St George’s who was killed in1940 in the Second World War. Murray-Willis was determined to keep the club going during the War and helped to organise matches every summer from 1939 to 1945. As much as a reward for his efforts, and for his association with the previous captain, as for his ability, he was given the captaincy when the War ended.

Gentlemen and Players

Cricket at this time was organised along British social class lines: there was a clear distinction between Gentlemen and Players. Gentlemen were amateurs who came from the upper and upper-middle classes and considered the crème de la crème of the game. They deigned to receive only expenses (though these could be substantial). Players were paid professionals and generally working class.

On tour the Gentlemen had superior travel and lodging and changed in separate dressing-rooms in the club pavilions. Gentlemen addressed Players by surname, while Players addressed their social betters as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mr X’. On match programmes the Gentlemen always had their initials printed before their surname, professionals after.

As was his predecessor, Murray-Willis was very much a Gentleman amateur and, as such, suitably qualified to captain the Northampton county team. His successor was also an amateur, Arthur Childs-Clarke, who successfully took the county team to the bottom of the table for the next two seasons.

Wins Northants County Cap

Peter Murray-Willis played 29 times at first-class level before and after the War, winning his county cap for Northamptonshire and captaining 18 times. However, despite admiration from some for his spirit, he was not a successful captain or player. His team tactics were criticised. And his playing style was described as ‘eccentric, flopping about in a friendly manner here and there’, ‘his flailing arms and legs making little progress on the turf.’

He finally lost credibility when, chasing a ball to the boundary, his cap blew off and he stopped to pick it up before returning the ball. Fortunately, the Surrey batmen were laughing so much that they failed to take the advantage and no runs were scored. This incident was one of the factors that persuaded Murray-Willis to resign mid-season, subsequently leaving the county game.

However, he continued to play cricket into his mid-fifties, appearing from 1946 to 1966 with the Forty Club, a team of experienced players of 40-years-old plus, whose aim was to challenge school and college teams and to set an example of standards of play and behaviour.

Peter Murray-Willis died in Sussex on 7July 1995 at the age of 84.

Paul Henry – The Star Who Became Typecast

March 28, 2015 by William Dargue 1 Comment

Until the Second World War Castle Bromwich was an extensive rural district stretching from the Fox and Goose in the west to Water Orton, and from Bromford in the north to Shard End. After the war, housing was built on the fields to replace the central slums of Birmingham and to rehouse families whose homes had been destroyed by German bombs.

One of the first families to move into the new housing estate at Shard End was that of Paul Henry who had been born in 1947 in Aston.

At School with Jeff Lynne

Attending Alderlea Boys’ Secondary School, Paul was in the same year as Jeff Lynne who would find fame with the Idle Race, The Move and the Electric Light Orchestra. But Paul Henry was into acting and, after a brief time working at Morris Motors, secured a scholarship at Birmingham School of Speech and Drama in the city centre.

Henry then worked for eight years with the Birmingham Repertory Company in a wide variety of roles and was among the cast who first performed in 1971 at the new (and current) theatre in Centenary Square after the company’s transfer from its old home in Station Street (now The Old Rep). The play was a musical, ‘First Impressions’ based on Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

Benny, the Crossroads Handyman

But it was in 1975 that Paul Henry became known to the nation, a mixed blessing as it later turned out, with a part as the handyman at the Crossroads motel just outside Birmingham in ATV’s long-running soap opera of the same name. Despite its reputation for wobbly sets and fluffed lines, it was a very popular series drawing up to 15 million viewers and running for 4510 episodes from 1964 to 1988 (its first director being Castle Bromwich-born Alan Coleman).

Bumbling and simple-minded, Paul’s character Benny Hawkins from 1975 to 1988 was loved and ridiculed in equal measure by the viewing public, but there can hardly have been anyone at the time who was not aware of the character.Like any soap opera, it was known for sudden changes of plot, strange story lines and changes of personnel. On one occasions Benny went off to find a spanner and did not reappear for a year.

Hectic Filming Schedule

The schedule at ATV’s Birmingham studios in Broad Street was hectic, Paul Henry described filming his parts in six weeks of episodes on his first day! Although for an repertory actor, who would start rehearsing at 9 am and carry on until the show closed at 10.30 pm, while already working on the company’s next production, it was par for the course.

Paul would be involved with crossroads for six months of the year, working on other stage productions during the rest of the year. He was perhaps the first soap star to work in pantomime.

Typecast and Broke

Paul Henry reaped the rewards of a soap star earning high wages and living in a luxury home in Barnt Green. But in 1988 Benny climbed a ladder to see to the fairy on top of the Christmas tree and was never seen again.

Unfortunately, Paul had become typecast. His character of 13 years was so well know that he was unable to find comparable employment; he was unable to meet his financial commitments and his house was repossessed.

Paul undertook a number of ventures since his departure from the Crossroads motel; for a while he tried his hand at running a pub, first Billy’s Bar in Digbeth, then the Actress and Bishop in the Jewellery Quarter. He has also taken small acting parts on radio, TV and on stage. In 2010 he appeared with acclaim as Birmingham-born Tony Hancock in a touring show of Colin Bennett’s ‘Hancock’s Finest Hour’.

Paul Henry now lives in Whitchurch, Shropshire.

Alan Coleman – King of Soap

March 28, 2015 by William Dargue 1 Comment

The house at 36 Chipperfield Road is not there now; it was destroyed by a German bomb in 1940. Although he was only four years old, Alan Coleman vividly remembered the night his house was destroyed. The family had evacuated on hearing the air raid warning to their Anderson shelter in the garden.

A German bomber, on its way to destroy the Spitfire factory on the Chester Road, scored a direct hit on no. 36. The force of the blast blew the Anderson shelter into next door and the Coleman family were left sitting in the garden watching the ruins of their house being consumed by flames. But they were safe.

(After the War a row of shops was built on the bomb site at the corner of Millington Road and no. 36 is now a small local supermarket. Part of Castle Bromwich at that time, Chipperfield Road would now be thought of as in Hodge Hill.)

The Coleman family was evacuated to the tiny rural hamlet of of Mousley End near Lapworth where they spent the rest of the war.

Joins ATV as a Cameraman

After three years at Sparkhill Commercial School Alan Coleman had a wide variety of jobs: newspaper reporter, insurance company rep, actor with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, shoe salesman, RAF photographer and hospital radiographer before joining the ATV in 1964 as a trainee cameraman. He soon became a director and was the first director of ‘Crossroads’, the world’s first five-nights-a-week ‘soap.’ He spent eight years with the series. In 1971 he was appointed Head of ATV Children’s Drama.

Moves to Australia

Alan Coleman was headhunted in 1974 by Reg Grundy and he moved to Australia to establish Grundy’s TV Drama Department producing Australia’s first ever teen soap. He later produced other serials including ‘Prisoner Cell Block H’ and was a prime mover behind Australia’s longest running series ‘Young Doctors’.

After leaving Grundys, he set up his own production company, returning in the early 1990s to produce ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Shortland Street’ in New Zealand and later ‘Home and Away.’

In 2008 Alan Coleman received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Aussie Soap Awards and was made Honorary President of the ATV Network in 2010. At the age when most people have sunk quietly into retirement, Alan continued to work as a director and run workshops for television actors. He died aged 76 in 2013 in Wyong, New South Wales, Australia.