Exploring England's Belfries



EXPLORING ENGLAND'S BELFRIES
A Pictorial Essay

Photographs by Christopher Dalton : Notes and introduction by Richard Jones

November 2019, hardback, 232 pp., 104 photographs, 297 x 230mm
ISBN: 978-1-905622-57-3

 ***CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE***

Christopher Dalton (1941–2008) has been described as 'one of the greatest post-war photographers of historic buildings'. He was also a distinguished archaeologist of bells and belfries. This book, with more than one hundred superbly evocative black-and-white photographs in high-quality reproduction, celebrates his work portraying churches in their landscape settings, tower exteriors and interiors, historic bell frames, and a chronological sequence of bells and their ornamentation.

It is not widely known that England's belfries contain a rich heritage of bells by a great variety of makers of all periods, including some very fine examples of mediaeval bell-founding. In these pages one can trace the outline of this craft tradition, from a remarkable 11th-century survival to a product of the Victorian industrialised bell-trade.

The sequence of photographs has been put together by Richard Jones, a fellow bell-lover who assisted the photographer on many belfry visits. He has also provided an introductory essay and an appendix of notes giving background to the bells and belfries represented.

 

The Bardwell Press. Tithe Barn House, 11 High Street, Cumnor, Oxford, OX2 9PE, United Kingdom
Email: info@bardwell-press.co.uk Tel.: 01865 865 865 Fax: 01865 595 598