UK Registered Charity Number: 1154107

Conservation by Re-use

Helping churches acquire surplus and/or redundant bells to be hung for

English-style full-circle bell-ringing.

Transferred Rings Chimes to Rings Lost Rings Lost Rings of 3 Lost transfer Reduced Rings Great Bells of Britain Chimes

The ninth edition of Dove’s Guide for Church Bell Ringers omitted the section for rings of bells transferred to other churches. We took the opportunity to compile a list of transfers and the major part of the source material was taken from the eighth edition of Dove’s Guide. We are grateful for the help given to us by John Baldwin & Ron Johnston (the compilers of the ninth edition), David Cawley, Chris Pickford, Nick Bowden, Tim Jackson, Mike Chester and many other individuals who provided a wealth of useful information. We are pleased that these sections have been reinstated in subsequent editions of Dove’s Guide. Link to buy Dove’s Guide.  Some information, especially dates are tentative and we welcome corrections and updates. Please email updates to Dave Kelly.

25th October 2023: Format changed from XLS to XLSX.

The information may be downloaded from our web site in Excel XLSX format.

Transferred rings since 1800 document in: Excel XLSX Spreadsheet format.   Updated  22/12/23.   

Chimes converted to rings since 1800 document in: Excel XLSX Spreadsheet format. Updated 25/10/23.

Lost rings of 4 or more bells since 1800 document in: Excel XLSX Spreadsheet format. Updated 03/03/24.

Lost rings of 3 bells since 1900 document in: Excel XLSX Spreadsheet format.  Updated 18/03/24.  

The lost rings document excludes churches where a ring of bells has been replaced by a transferred ring. The following document lists churches where the earlier rings have been scrapped or installed for chiming. Excel XLSX Spreadsheet format. Updated 17/12/23.  

Ring reductions since 1750 document. (Where the number of bells in the ring has been reduced). Excel XLSX Spreadsheet format. Updated 19/01/24.

Chris Pickford’s list of Great Bells of  Britain. Now a Word document.  Updated 14/01/18 (V12).

Mike Chester’s list of Chimes. Excel XLSX Spreadsheet format. Please email comments or alterations to Mike Chester. Updated 20/12/21

Files last updated: 18th March 2024


Although these lists are held on our web site, the trustees of the Keltek Trust would like to make it clear that we have been involved in only a handful of the 100+ rings/chimes transferred to other churches.

Martin Smith’s list of Great Rings Dove Events has moved to a dedicated website.


The raw data may be downloaded as an Excel XLSX file. Updated 20/11/21

Great Rings Events Great Rings Raw Data