Bellfounders · Marlbrook · since 1782
Everything we cast is meant to outlive us.
Wrenfield has stood on Trellick Lane for two hundred and forty-four years. We cast bells in loam, tune them on the lathe to five partials, hang them in oak and iron, and come back every five years to see how they are getting on.
Cast · Tuned · Hung · Maintained — Foundry Yard, Marlbrook · MDCCLXXXII
The yard
A trade that has not needed improving
Josiah Wrenfield dug the first casting pit here in 1782 because the lane ran downhill to the Marl and he needed somewhere to put the sand. The pit is still where he left it. So is the method: a loam mould built up on a spindle, a bronze of seventy-seven parts copper to twenty-three parts tin, one pour, and three days waiting to find out.
Eleven people work here. Two of them have been tuning bells longer than the youngest has been alive. We are not the biggest foundry in the country and have never tried to be — we take about forty jobs a year, which is the number we can do properly, and we say no to the rest with a recommendation attached.
- Founded
- 1782
- Bells cast to date
- 4,110
- Heaviest cast here
- 34–1–12
- Alloy
- 77 Cu · 23 Sn
- Rings in
- 31 counties, 9 countries
What we do
Judged on five partials
Strike a bell and you do not hear one note. You hear five, and if any one of them is out the bell sounds wrong in a way most people cannot name. Our work is organised the same way: five things, each of which has to be right on its own before the whole is worth anything.
Casting
We cast in the yard, in loam, on the same spindle Josiah turned. One pour, one chance, and three days in the pit before anyone is allowed to look. If it comes out wrong we break it up and start again, which has happened four times in my lifetime.
Tuning
On the vertical boring lathe, taking metal off the inside only, never the outside. Five partials brought true against the nominal. Bells leave here inside two cents, and every reading goes in the book against the bell's number.
Hanging
Oak headstocks where the tower can take them, cast iron where it cannot. Ball bearings where they earn their keep and plain brass where they do not. We hang for full-circle ringing, for chiming, and for clocks that have to keep time without anybody in the building.
Restoration
Cracked bells welded, worn crowns re-fitted, Victorian frames jacked straight and pinned. We will always try to save a bell before we recommend recasting one, because a recast bell is a new bell wearing an old inscription and everybody knows it.
Inspection
The quinquennial. We climb the tower, put a bar on everything that turns, and write you a report in language a churchwarden can act on rather than file. Where nothing needs doing we say so and charge you for the visit, not for the worry.
From the order book
Plates from the drawing office
We draw everything before we make it, and we keep the drawings. These three are on the wall of the moulding shop.
The board
Work completed · 2024 to 2026
Every bell cast here since 1782 is in the yard book · ask and we will look yours up
“Two founders had already told us the tenor was finished. Wrenfield said it could be saved, put it in writing, and it was rung on Christmas morning.”Tower captain · Holy Trinity, Kington
Enquiries
Tell us about your tower
The dedication, how many bells, and roughly what is wrong. We will tell you what we think in writing, and what it is likely to cost, before anybody signs anything.