Thursday 31st July
The Parish Church of The Holy Trinity, St Andrews
.
The original building of Holy Trinity Church was completed in 1412 and its huge wooden galleries were installed to hold some 3000 people. By the end of the 19th century the buildings were thought to be old fashioned and the church was almost entirely rebuilt except for the Tower, the west wall and a number of pillars on the north side of the church, all which survive from the 15th century.
This Tower which houses the carillon dates back to 1412 and is certainly the oldest tower we will be visiting on our tour. The first 15 bells of the carillon here were dedicated on St Andrew's Day, 1926; a further two bells were added in 1938 and then six more in 1962 which meant that the chime officially became a carillon. The newest bells were added in 1998 which brought the total to 27 bells and enabled a greater variety of music to be played. This carillon belongs to the church and ALL the bells were cast by John Taylor & Company of Loughborough.
Access to the tower is through a small door in one corner of the church and the stone staircase is very narrow and winds round somewhat precariously due to uneven steps and no handrail except for an old bell rope running down the centre!
There are approx 63 steps up to the clavier (it's hard to be exact when personal safety takes precedence over counting steps!) The clavier is very compact but takes some energy to play. Caroline particulalry apreciated the dummy Db & Eb pedals which act as good guides - this is what Caroline found she missed at Perth.
Caroline was invited by Christine Gascoigne, the Holy Trinity Carillonneur, to play for around 15 minutes (between clock chimes). Caroline really enjoyed playing this carillon which she described as 'quirky'. The mechanism is very noisy and some of the wires may need tightening; Caroline said it was fun and that she wasn't always sure if a bell was going to play or not - there was a particular knack to some of them.
This blue box in the clavier room houses the automatic action for the curfew bell which has been rung for centuries at 8pm every evening except Sundays. It used to be the job of the Beadle to ring the curfew bell by hand which meant that he was ringing for a full 15 minutes. Since 1961 the ringing has been mechanised and it now rings precisely 100 times each evening.After a short recital, Christine showed us up to the bells - another 18 steps up.
Next Christine guided us up another 25 steps for fansatic views of St Andrews from the top of the tower
And here's Caz who can't stand heights (?!) looking out over St Andrews with Christine who pointed out all the important landmarks.
We'd like to thank Christine very much for her welcome and for showing us around the carillon tower.On this visit we were once again accompanied by Ian Cassells (Perth Carillonneur) and Joyce who took us on a fabulous mini tour of St Andrews AND treated us to a lovely lunch again.
Ian took us to the cooling shade of the Quadrangle of St Andrews University. We had a peek into St Salvator's Chapel which houses a magificent organ.
John Knox (Reformation) preached here as, indeed, he did at Perth but below is the actual pulpit he stood in whereas in Perth the pulpit he used has long gone.
After lunch we took a stroll down towards the beach past the ruins of St Andrews Castle ...
...and ruins of the cathedral opposite which was pulled down during the reformation. Much of the stone from the cathedral was sold in oder to build houses, so many of the houses in St Andrews are built out of the cathedral walls.
We walked down onto the beach and enjoyed a lovely cooliong breeze - as you can see it's been a bright, warm, sunny day.
No visit to St Andrews would be complete without a piper!
After saying our farewells to Ian and Joyce and thanking them once again for thier hospitality and very informative tour, we embarked on a three hour drive (it should have been two but Glasgow rush hour slowed us down) to Dumbarton where we will be visiting the carillon at 12:30 before driving to Kilmarnock for 3pm. Tomorrow evening sees us making the long drive down to Newcastle so any further blog entries are unlikely to be posted now until Saturday morning!
Crossing the Forth Bridge earlier and hitting some welcome rain to cool us down - get the idea we've been a bit warm lately?!
...and ruins of the cathedral opposite which was pulled down during the reformation. Much of the stone from the cathedral was sold in oder to build houses, so many of the houses in St Andrews are built out of the cathedral walls.
We walked down onto the beach and enjoyed a lovely cooliong breeze - as you can see it's been a bright, warm, sunny day.
No visit to St Andrews would be complete without a piper!
After saying our farewells to Ian and Joyce and thanking them once again for thier hospitality and very informative tour, we embarked on a three hour drive (it should have been two but Glasgow rush hour slowed us down) to Dumbarton where we will be visiting the carillon at 12:30 before driving to Kilmarnock for 3pm. Tomorrow evening sees us making the long drive down to Newcastle so any further blog entries are unlikely to be posted now until Saturday morning!
Crossing the Forth Bridge earlier and hitting some welcome rain to cool us down - get the idea we've been a bit warm lately?!
No comments:
Post a Comment