Posted: December 14, 2023

Grace & Holy Trinity’s Tower Bells

“Ring Out, Wild Bells”

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

– Alfred, Lord Tennyson

As most of you are now aware, Grace & Holy Trinity has joined the nineteen-hundred-year Christian tradition of bells in the church tower. An anonymous bequest specifically for this purpose has made this glorious addition to our infrastructure and our presence in the Monroe Park neighborhood possible. The bells were made for us at the B. A. Sunderlin Bellfoundry, just up the road in Ruther Glen in Caroline County. Benjamin Sunderlin, the foundry’s campanologist (which is what the makers of bells are called), trained for many years in Britain, France, Belgium, and Croatia, learning the various European traditions of bell-making for which his operation is known.

The ten bells in our “chime” are French bells, the largest of which is 31 inches across and weighs 650 pounds. Todd Dykshorn explains that preparation of the building’s tower bellfry began with Dunbar, a 50-year-old Richmond structural engineering firm, who led the effort by designing a steel support frame anchored to the tower’s stone walls. Century Construction has been the lead contractor. They began with restoration of the inner tower walls and ceiling, after which they oversaw installation of the building’s new steel support frame. The rest was up to Ben Sunderlin, who had responsibility for the design and installation of the steel rack that supports the cast bells. He was also the one to install the bells themselves. The schedule depended upon Mr. Sunderlin’s schedule of commitments, but the wait is finally over, the bells are ours, and they are to be dedicated on December 10th.

The tradition of using bells to deliver the message of community and worship to everyone within earshot is as old as the exquisitely detailed instructions from the Lord to Moses in the Book of Exodus. Everything is covered, from the architecture, furnishings, and clothing to the forms of worship in the tabernacle that was to be built. Where the bells appear is as a feature to be sewn around the hem of the robe of Moses’s brother Aaron, who was to be the first priest, so that he could be heard coming and going from the building.

Christian churches have relied on the ringing of bells to communicate with everyone within earshot since the fifth century, when an Italian bishop incorporated bells into Catholic church services. The bells tell people when to come together, ring to broadcast communal joy in times of celebration and deeply felt sorrow in times of loss, to warn of some imminent danger to the whole population, or to mark the hours established to stop for prayer. Many of us have seen the exquisite 19th century Millet painting called The Angelus, in which a French peasant couple pause in their field near the end of the day to bow their heads in prayer. You can almost hear the church bells ringing in the distance in this calming expression of their humble piety.

It is fitting that the sound of these bells will be a fixture of the church in time for the Centennial of Grace & Holy Trinity’s formation on June 2nd, 1924. As most of you probably know, the parish is the result of a merger between Grace Church, which stood at Foushee and Main Streets, and Holy Trinity Church, which was founded on Monroe Park in 1874 as Moore Memorial Chapel in what was then Richmond’s “far west end.” Now that the bells are installed and connected, so that they can be played from the organ console, we as a parish will begin the establishment of our own traditions covering how the ten bells are best used. Surely they will peal for newly married couples, toll for the losses of those we love among us, and react to moments of civic or national crisis or joy.

However we proceed with them, let us pray that their sound will serve to call everyone within earshot to pause in the frenetic daily pace of study, work, and family, center ourselves according to our own traditions, and feel our integral connection to the neighborhood, the city, and the whole world.

– Ann Norvell Gray