Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 22, 1993                   TAG: 9307220683
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: W-1   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SALEM CHURCH INSTALLS 3 HAND-RUNG BRONZE BELLS

Standing on South Market Street in downtown Salem about 40 people silently measured its size against the 5-by-8-foot opening in the brick tower of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

On July 15, the big bell, cast in Baltimore in 1885, found a new home in the church tower along with a 1,000-pound bell and a 350-pound bell. The set is tuned to G, B and D notes, respectively, making it possible for the bronze bells to be rung in peals on Sundays and for joyous occasions or to be tolled for funerals.

The set is believed to be the only completely hand-rung peal of bells in the Roanoke Valley. Most church bells are rung electronically.

A spokesman for the church, Richard Garst, said the hand-rung bells are in keeping with the English heritage of the Episcopal church and offer more variety than the electronic, preset bells.

Getting the bells in the tower was the climax of several months of planning. Even as the 1,200-pounder swung on a crane to the tower's south opening where the louver had been removed, many wondered if a hitch would develop.

Jay Hough, a church member and the architect who designed the two tiny rooms in the tower where the three bells are now lodged, admitted he worried a little. After all, it isn't every day that more than 2,550 pounds of bells are hoisted over a major street on a crane and fitted into an opening the height of a man and too narrow for one to lie across.

It was Hough's only experience with designing a 12-by-12-foot space for the bells. The hardest part, he said as "Big G" was eased into the opening by five men in the tower, was removing the wood louver without damaging it. He and contractor Wayne Campbell had rejected a plan to bring the bells up through the inside entrance under the tower.

Only a 2-inch clearance was possible, and a few inches of the metal yoke had to be removed before it would fit through the hole, said William Parker Jr., a representative of the Maryland bell foundry, which was once located in Baltimore. The McShane Foundry, which has been making bells since before the Civil War and is the oldest such company in the United States, has two bells on display in the Smithsonian Institution.

St. Paul's, a parish dating to 1852 and in its present brick building since 1911, never had had bells in its tower. The three just installed were made possible by gifts from the Logan and Higginbotham families in the parish.

The brick tower with louvered openings on four sides was topped in 1965 by a crafted metal steeple decorated with Christian symbols. There was no provision inside the tower for the placement of heavy bells or a place for people to climb to ring them.

Hough and Campbell, after determining that the bells would fit, constructed a small room for ringers. It will be reached by a movable ladder ascending from the church's tower entrance on Main Street. The ringers' room is on the second tower level with the bells above it.

The bells are expected to be rung at several parish weddings in August. The largest bell can be rung from the ground floor of the entrance hall as well as from the tower room.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Copenhaver, rector, said a goal is to ring the bells daily at noon and 5 p.m.