The Story of an Ancient Parish: Breage with Germoe by H. R. Coulthard

Author:H. R. Coulthard [Coulthard, H. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781330585146
Google: 0kxqAQAACAAJ
Goodreads: 26281540
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Published: 2015-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

"In the startled ear of night,

Too much horrified to speak

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune:

Leaping, higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour,

Now, now, to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.

Oh the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells,

Of despair!

How they clang and clash and roar!

What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!"

On one of these uproarious occasions the tenor bell broke away from its fastenings, and instead of sitting by the pale-faced moon, it came crashing through the belfry floor on to the flags at the base of the tower, nearly annihilating in the process some of the exuberant ringers. The nocturnal clash and roar seems, if tradition speaks true, to have frequently lasted all through the night. On New Year's Eve especially it was the custom to continue ringing the bells through the majority of the hours of darkness that remained after midnight. There being no regulations as to the hour of closing public houses in those days, on these occasions of festivity they remained open until all hours of the morning, and strong waters thus passed freely between the public house and the belfry, the distance being so short between them. The endless jangle of the midnight bells, it is said, got on the nerves of the Reverend Edward Marshall; more possibly his sense of decency and fitness was stirred by these wild doings. To remedy the evil he took the drastic action of melting the four mediæval bells down into the present big one on the fall of the tenor bell from its fastening in the tower, much against the wishes of his parishioners, as the motto round the base of the bell more than hints. The process of recasting took place in the large field on the south side of the Church. This drastic operation only seems to have made matters worse, as on the following New Year's Eve, a lusty band of Tinners took possession of the belfry, and the awful "boom," "boom" of the big bell, in ceaseless iteration, sounded out over land and sea, banishing sleep through the livelong night from all within easy distance of Breage Church Tower.

We may remark that Edward Marshall was a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and son of the Reverend William Marshall, of Ashprington, Devonshire. His wife was a member of the Sandys family, of Lanarth, and his grandson long represented Taunton in Parliament.

The Germoe bells were purchased by public subscription and placed in Germoe Church in 1753. The tenor bell, weighing 7 cwt., merely records the names of Edward Collins, vicar, and Samuel Lemon and Simon Harry, Churchwardens; the second bell weighs 51⁄2 cwt., and has engraved upon it "Prosperity to this parish." The treble bell, weighing 41⁄2 cwt., records the fact that "Abraham Rudhall caste us all." The Communion plate both at Breage and Germoe was the gift of Dr. Godolphin, Dean of St. Paul's; he was the brother of the great Sidney Godolphin. The

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