FoundryStroud, GloucestershireEst. 1991
Six people, one casting pit, and a furnace lit about thirty times a year.
Tierce began in a converted wool mill on the Thames and Severn Canal, with one furnace and a commission for a school bell. We still work in the same yard. Everything that can be done by hand, we do by hand; everything that can be measured, we measure twice.
We cast between twenty and forty bells a year, from 140 mm handbells to carillon bourdons of several tonnes, and we restore and retune old rings when their towers call us.
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01People(06)
Founder and moulder
Poured the first bell here in 1991 and still sweeps most of the cores.
Tuner
Thirty years on the lathe. Tunes by meter, checks by ear, argues with both.
Drawing office
Draws every profile by hand first, then in code. Every drawing on this site is hers.
Furnace and pit
Runs the furnace on pour days and decides when a cope comes off.
Bell hanger
Headstocks, bearings and frames. Has climbed four hundred towers.
Apprentice
In his third year. Cast his first handbell in the spring.
02MethodLoam to lathe
The same seven drawings, every time.
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01
Loam
Sand, clay, horse dung and goat hair, wetted and trodden.
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02
Strickle
The board turns on the spindle and sweeps the core.
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03
False bell
A loam layer as thick as the metal will be.
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04
Cope
The outer mould, built over the false bell and baked.
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05
Pour
Bronze at about 1,100 °C, in at the crown.
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06
Cool
Days in the pit; the cope is lifted off.
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07
Tune
Pared on the lathe until five partials agree.
03Since 1991
- Bells poured
- 412
- Heaviest
- 4.6 t
- Lightest
- 0.4 kg
- Towers rehung
- 67