The Touring Tower

The Touring Tower was developed with funding from Taylor’s Bellfoundry and the Central Council of Church Bell ringers, and should be operational from mid-May 2024.

It has been designed to be an exemplar of mobile belfry design, ready to demonstrate bellringing in the English style to new audiences, leading the way for ringing recruitment through 2024 and beyond, available to demonstrate ringing in schools, workplaces, and at festivals.

A specialist bespoke trailer manufacturer has been engaged to get make the belfry truly mobile, and ready to fulfil engagements later in 2024.

The trailer is key to the design, so that it can be quickly unloaded and erected. The principle is demonstrated in the video below:

Details of the bells

The design of the bells is the result of extensive research and modelling by Taylors. They need to be thick enough to sound like real bells but not too thick that they will accentuate the higher frequencies. And of course in order that the entire installation didn’t exceed our target weight of 1800kg.

This analysis of mini ring bell sizes and frequencies of bells in different small rings was part of the design process. The bells are actually Taylors’ patent carillon design but tuned much lower and therefore thinner.

Bell	Diameter	Weight	Note
Treble	9.4″	0-0-21	C#
2	9.6″	0-0-22	B
3	10.2″	0-0-23	A
4	10.6″	0-1-1	G#
5	11.4″	0-1-7	F#
Tenor	12.9″	0-1-22	E

For more information on the background of The Touring Tower, details about the frame and fittings and more please go to the Mobile Belfry 2.0 website.